My rating:
add to my books
Loading...
Big If
It's winter in New Hampshire, the economy is booming, the vice president is running for president, and his Secret Service people are very, very tense.Meet Vi Asplund, a young Secret Service agent mourning her dead father. She goes home to New Hampshire to see her brother Jens, a computer genius who just might be going mad and is poised to make a fortune on Big If, a viciou...more
Hardcover, 320 pages
Published
June 17th 2002
by W. W. Norton & Company
(first published 2002)
There is a good chance some of your friends read this book. Sign in to see!
sign in »
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
This book is currently not featured on any Listopia lists.
Add this book to your favorite list »
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
269)
Mark Costello's novel Big If is a superb and unforgiving comedy of American life involving a low-level Secret Service agent who must get reacquainted with her estranged computer-genius brother when she takes a respite from the paranoid turns and twists of her nerve-rattling job. This is a book of richly skewed characters doing their best to make sense of their lives, or at least have their lives take on a fleeting semblance of normality.The quests, individual and collective, aren't what anyone w...more
Set over a matter of days before a presedential election, Costello explores the past and present of brother and sister Violet and Jens Asplund, Jens' wife Peta, Vi's coworkers Gretchen and Tashmo. Vi, Gretchen and Tashmo are Secret Service bodyguards protecting the current VP running in the presidential race; Jens is a software designer for a violent teenager's computer game, and Peta is a sucessful real estate agent.
Costello does a great job playing these different characters' live...more
Costello does a great job playing these different characters' live...more
Fiction. Though this book will tell you it's about the United States Secret Service, it's really just about some people who happen to work for the USSS and a couple more people who happen to know those people. It's about people. One of those people books where nothing much happens. You meet all these people, you get their flashbacks, you learn about their problems, and then the book is about that. Will Gretchen ever connect with her son in any meaningful way? Will Peta ever get Lauren Czoll to m...more
The summary to this novel would make it seem dry & uninteresting, but I didn't find it to be so. Costello excels on taking specified fields (Beltway politics, programming a MMORPG) & making them relateable. Even though Vi is the main focus of the novel, I was much more interested in Jens' story & the ethics of creating an alternate reality while trying to make money or predict human behavior. The story is good, but seems to get away from the writer, giving some of the other subplots more prom...more
I read this because Costello was the only author mentioned in the New York magazine article "Just Kids" of whom I had never heard.
The book is one very long setup without a payoff. If you need payoff stay the hell away from this book. If you like strong characters, this book has them in abundance. It's a first act followed by a long middle without an ending.
The book is one very long setup without a payoff. If you need payoff stay the hell away from this book. If you like strong characters, this book has them in abundance. It's a first act followed by a long middle without an ending.
This is the story of Vi Asplund. She is a Secret Service agent who is in charge of guarding the Vice President as he campaigns for office. They make a campaign swing through New Hampshire, where Vi grew up.There are a number of other characters in the book. Vi's boss Gretchen. Her brother and sister-in-law. A fellow agent named Tashmo and another named Bobbie.
Costello is an engaging storyteller, and most of his NH details were on target. The descriptions of the beauty of computer code and what made it satisfying to Jens were very well done. He has apparently never voted in NH however as his description of the way the polls in NH operate is off. I was disappointed by the ending as many threads of his story are left unresolved.
The writing wasn't fabulous, but the subject matter was unusual and very well covered. This includes Secret Service protection operations and software development for a web game. There were some memorable characters. After I got a couple chapters in, I enjoyed it very much. Nat'l Book Award finalist.
A rarity: both the Economist and Esquire liked it, but I did not. A political drama that unfolds more like an Elmore Leonard novel than something richer in its approach. So if you like Elmore Leonard & politics, this might be a winner for you.
Interesting story and I really like the way the characters were developed. The ending left me unsatisfied and unresolved. The book just sort of stopped as opposed to ended for me.
Interesting in light of the recent election. Nothing I really learned from it other than the ins and out of secret service detail. It was a good story though.
Matt read it to me.
Not your typical storyline and characters, which makes it interesting. I read it during the last election, and it made it a little more topical. A glimpse into the secret service and into computer gaming at the same time.
I feel a now have a small bit of knowledge of how the secret service agents guard important people in the government, especially when they are out and about.
Oh man, this guy is like a wild animal, this book and his first novel, Bag Men will kick your ass.
Anti-climactic. Too much noise and background with very little pay out.
It was a interesting book, but it just ended. Where's the wrap-up??
Interesting characters. Mediocre plot.
Well written, but seriously depressing.
People who guard the president be messed up.
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
