What do you think?
Rate this book
The Program
The Program is a unique work of stark humour and pathos that seduces its readers into the world of advertising guru Maury Stern. Through chain restaurants, forest reserves, Zionist summer camps, abandoned amusement parks and eastern European shtetls, the novel chases a mystery: what happened to Maury’s son, Danny, the night he was left alone with his uncle.
Funny, fallible and lost, Maury blows up his life attempting to find the answer. His monster brother, the bogeyman of Danny’s childhood, has gone missing: is Maury still his brother’s keeper? His mum, Bubby Stern, is plugging her brain with the contents of American soap operas to avoid the secret she has carried since her girlhood: why can’t Maury be a good son and make her happy? When a simple camping trip with Danny turns into another horror show, Maury takes one look at the reproach in his wife’s eyes and runs away.
Staggering under the weight of everyone’s desire for him to please be normal again, the wounded Danny can’t tackle the mystery of himself directly. Instead he disappears into the computer lab where he writes The Program — as a way to an alternative reality where the conflicting agendas of past, present and future may be resolved.
From the Hardcover edition.
Funny, fallible and lost, Maury blows up his life attempting to find the answer. His monster brother, the bogeyman of Danny’s childhood, has gone missing: is Maury still his brother’s keeper? His mum, Bubby Stern, is plugging her brain with the contents of American soap operas to avoid the secret she has carried since her girlhood: why can’t Maury be a good son and make her happy? When a simple camping trip with Danny turns into another horror show, Maury takes one look at the reproach in his wife’s eyes and runs away.
Staggering under the weight of everyone’s desire for him to please be normal again, the wounded Danny can’t tackle the mystery of himself directly. Instead he disappears into the computer lab where he writes The Program — as a way to an alternative reality where the conflicting agendas of past, present and future may be resolved.
From the Hardcover edition.
- GenresFiction
336 pages, Paperback
First published February 22, 2005
11 people want to read
About the author
Hal Niedzviecki
16 books50 followersHal Niedzviecki is a writer, culture commentator and editor whose work challenges
preconceptions and confronts readers with the offenses of everyday life. Hal works in both the fiction and nonfiction genres. He is the author
of books including, in fiction, the novel Ditch, and his latest novel The Program. In nonfiction, his most recent work is The Peep Diaries: How We're Learning To Love Watching Ourselves and Our Neighbors (www.peepdiaries.com). He is the
current fiction editor and the founder of Broken Pencil, the magazine of zine culture and
the independent arts ( www.brokenpencil.com). He edited the magazine from 1995 to
2002. Hal’s writing has appeared in newspapers, periodicals and journals across North
America including the Utne Reader, the Globe and Mail, the National Post, Toronto Life,
Walrus, Geist, and This Magazine. He was the recipient of the Alexander Ross Award for
Best New Magazine Writer at the 1999 National Magazine Awards and has presented his
work at events across North America including the International Festival of Authors in
Toronto. Once dubbed the “guru of independent/alternative action” by the Toronto Star,
Niedzviecki is committed to exploring the human condition through provocative fiction
and non-fiction that charts the media saturated terrain of ever shifting multiple identities
at the heart of our fragmenting age. For excerpts, reviews, samples of past articles and
more, visit Hal’s website: www.smellit.ca
preconceptions and confronts readers with the offenses of everyday life. Hal works in both the fiction and nonfiction genres. He is the author
of books including, in fiction, the novel Ditch, and his latest novel The Program. In nonfiction, his most recent work is The Peep Diaries: How We're Learning To Love Watching Ourselves and Our Neighbors (www.peepdiaries.com). He is the
current fiction editor and the founder of Broken Pencil, the magazine of zine culture and
the independent arts ( www.brokenpencil.com). He edited the magazine from 1995 to
2002. Hal’s writing has appeared in newspapers, periodicals and journals across North
America including the Utne Reader, the Globe and Mail, the National Post, Toronto Life,
Walrus, Geist, and This Magazine. He was the recipient of the Alexander Ross Award for
Best New Magazine Writer at the 1999 National Magazine Awards and has presented his
work at events across North America including the International Festival of Authors in
Toronto. Once dubbed the “guru of independent/alternative action” by the Toronto Star,
Niedzviecki is committed to exploring the human condition through provocative fiction
and non-fiction that charts the media saturated terrain of ever shifting multiple identities
at the heart of our fragmenting age. For excerpts, reviews, samples of past articles and
more, visit Hal’s website: www.smellit.ca
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 15, 2020
I kind of want to kick the author of this book in the shins, to be honest. This book reminds me of every mediocre man I have ever known who thinks he is a genius, but actually has nothing much to add to any given conversation. The book goes on and on as if it has something important to tell us, but it's really just a bunch of disconnected drivel that doesn't have any apparent connection to anything else. It's not even good as experimental prose. And, seriously, if I read one more description of ropey sperm by another fucking male writer, I'm going to find them and hurl their own book at their head. I don't need to hear about masturbation unless it somehow adds something to the story. Srsly.
Stupidly, like every relationship I've ever had, I ended up reading the whole damn thing hoping it would redeem itself. Trust me, it didn't.
This will be the first book I will totally throw in the trash now that I'm done reading it. I can't think of a single person I dislike enough to give the impression that this book is even remotely worth reading.
Stupidly, like every relationship I've ever had, I ended up reading the whole damn thing hoping it would redeem itself. Trust me, it didn't.
This will be the first book I will totally throw in the trash now that I'm done reading it. I can't think of a single person I dislike enough to give the impression that this book is even remotely worth reading.
October 7, 2018
I wanted to like this book, but it never really came together for me. By the end, there was no real sense of character growth or plot conclusion. I couldn't really relate to anyone, and all of the questions and curiosity sparked by early chapters were met with ambiguity.
That said, for people who enjoy more abstract stories and experimental art or poetry, this may still be of interest. Chapters were vignettes of different characters' points of view. Themes ranged widely: commercialization of everything, how people respond to the stresses of adulthood, the rich inner world of people society dismisses as damaged, to name a few.
That said, for people who enjoy more abstract stories and experimental art or poetry, this may still be of interest. Chapters were vignettes of different characters' points of view. Themes ranged widely: commercialization of everything, how people respond to the stresses of adulthood, the rich inner world of people society dismisses as damaged, to name a few.
June 11, 2010
This review appeared in The Peterborough Examiner in April, 2005.
The Program by Hal Niedzviecki
Random House Canada,
February 2005 HC
336 pages
$29.95
ISBN: 0-679-31305-2
Review by Ursula Pflug
600 words
In Hal Niedzviecki’s new novel The Program, advertising guru Maury Stern worries about his son Danny. Danny’s never been quite the same since Maury’s younger brother Cal babysat. Cal doesn’t have much of a life. His brother finds him jobs, he lives in basements; he resents Maury and his family. He doesn’t know how to handle small children, especially willful four year olds, and ends up shutting Danny in a closet.
For how long?
We’re never told.
Did anything else happen?
We’re never told.
We’re told about how Maury was awful to Cal at the dilapidated Zionist camp they attended as children, but it’s awful in a way that, well, happens. Cal is mostly described as a not terribly likeable loser, and yet we are offered occasional glimpses of him where something seems more seriously amiss. Cal might wig out a little and do something unexpected, something frightening, something more than a little odd, and then, well, there is a creepiness pervading The Program, a sense that everything is about to tip over, that life and events will careen away from all normalcy, possible forever. Which they do.
Is Cal Maury’s fault, because of what happened at camp? Is Danny Cal’s fault? Or did it begin with Danny and Maury’s mother? Her therapist tells her everything that’s wrong with her family is because of her denied guilt. Bubby Stern watches TV all day and all night, and has conversations with an imaginary therapist, at the same time congratulating herself for knowing soap opera characters aren’t real, unlike some. Very entertaining.
Or maybe Danny is The Professor’s fault, a cyborg computer engineer based on Steve Mann, who teaches at U of T. I’ve met Professor Mann. He’s definitely odd. But not the way Cal is odd. Mann is just strange, although very intelligent, and fascinating. But in The Program, what happens to Danny at the end, is somehow The Professor’s fault too, for thinking that becoming post-human is a good idea, and encouraging his students to think likewise. This section feels a bit overdone, stereotyping the hacker/programmer as brilliant, unhealthy, celibate, seriously wanting in social skills. Many programmers are, in fact, spiffily dressed paragons of courtesy and geniality.
We also get the POV of Cal’s ex Patricia, a social worker. Why is so much of Patricia’s Stern’s life in the book? Music videos, news, Windows XP, channel flipping; The Program’s structure mirrors these; and is largely successful for it. Many novels today are told in just this way, jumping from character to character, telling us snippets of a story to make us keep reading so we’ll find out the rest later. The Program upends these readerly expectations.
Niedzviecki writes unhappiness very well. The everyday unhappiness of a harried modern life filled with too much pressure and not enough time for oneself, and, given that time, no useful ways to fill it. How to be happy? In spite of Maury’s success, he feels hollow inside. And it’s not just the difficulties he has as a parent. His work in advertising, he senses, is hollow. But there are no prescriptives here.
The Program is not an upper. It’s not escapist. There’s no redemption, no strong beautiful smart characters who overcome evil and challenging circumstances. It will appeal to readers of contemporary literary fiction, crime fiction, noir and mystery, because of its engaging readability, its suspense and its content, although the genre reader may be mystified when there’s no final tidying of loose ends. It’s about unravelling, after all. Everyone, and in every way.
Like Niedzivicki’s magazine Broken Pencil, The Program is very modern. Oh, and funny too.
The Program by Hal Niedzviecki
Random House Canada,
February 2005 HC
336 pages
$29.95
ISBN: 0-679-31305-2
Review by Ursula Pflug
600 words
In Hal Niedzviecki’s new novel The Program, advertising guru Maury Stern worries about his son Danny. Danny’s never been quite the same since Maury’s younger brother Cal babysat. Cal doesn’t have much of a life. His brother finds him jobs, he lives in basements; he resents Maury and his family. He doesn’t know how to handle small children, especially willful four year olds, and ends up shutting Danny in a closet.
For how long?
We’re never told.
Did anything else happen?
We’re never told.
We’re told about how Maury was awful to Cal at the dilapidated Zionist camp they attended as children, but it’s awful in a way that, well, happens. Cal is mostly described as a not terribly likeable loser, and yet we are offered occasional glimpses of him where something seems more seriously amiss. Cal might wig out a little and do something unexpected, something frightening, something more than a little odd, and then, well, there is a creepiness pervading The Program, a sense that everything is about to tip over, that life and events will careen away from all normalcy, possible forever. Which they do.
Is Cal Maury’s fault, because of what happened at camp? Is Danny Cal’s fault? Or did it begin with Danny and Maury’s mother? Her therapist tells her everything that’s wrong with her family is because of her denied guilt. Bubby Stern watches TV all day and all night, and has conversations with an imaginary therapist, at the same time congratulating herself for knowing soap opera characters aren’t real, unlike some. Very entertaining.
Or maybe Danny is The Professor’s fault, a cyborg computer engineer based on Steve Mann, who teaches at U of T. I’ve met Professor Mann. He’s definitely odd. But not the way Cal is odd. Mann is just strange, although very intelligent, and fascinating. But in The Program, what happens to Danny at the end, is somehow The Professor’s fault too, for thinking that becoming post-human is a good idea, and encouraging his students to think likewise. This section feels a bit overdone, stereotyping the hacker/programmer as brilliant, unhealthy, celibate, seriously wanting in social skills. Many programmers are, in fact, spiffily dressed paragons of courtesy and geniality.
We also get the POV of Cal’s ex Patricia, a social worker. Why is so much of Patricia’s Stern’s life in the book? Music videos, news, Windows XP, channel flipping; The Program’s structure mirrors these; and is largely successful for it. Many novels today are told in just this way, jumping from character to character, telling us snippets of a story to make us keep reading so we’ll find out the rest later. The Program upends these readerly expectations.
Niedzviecki writes unhappiness very well. The everyday unhappiness of a harried modern life filled with too much pressure and not enough time for oneself, and, given that time, no useful ways to fill it. How to be happy? In spite of Maury’s success, he feels hollow inside. And it’s not just the difficulties he has as a parent. His work in advertising, he senses, is hollow. But there are no prescriptives here.
The Program is not an upper. It’s not escapist. There’s no redemption, no strong beautiful smart characters who overcome evil and challenging circumstances. It will appeal to readers of contemporary literary fiction, crime fiction, noir and mystery, because of its engaging readability, its suspense and its content, although the genre reader may be mystified when there’s no final tidying of loose ends. It’s about unravelling, after all. Everyone, and in every way.
Like Niedzivicki’s magazine Broken Pencil, The Program is very modern. Oh, and funny too.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews