A SIMPLE MACHINE, LIKE THE LEVER by Evan P. Schneider, foreword by Justin Hocking
A SIMPLE MACHINE, LIKE THE LEVER by Evan P. Schneider, foreword by Justin Hocking
Nicholas Allander, thirty-one, carless, and careerless, is trying to pay off debt, impress his girlfriend, keep his job, cast off his introversion, and accept the world’s imperfections without abandoning his heart. He considers growing his beard, taking up alcoholism, abandoning scrounging, and owning an automobile. All the while he clings to his bicycle, a simple machine whose purpose and workings he grasps. Written in the wake of the 2008-2009 financial meltdown, this subtle, charming novel about the attempt to maintain one’s humanity in the face of constant affronts to it is as timely now as when first released.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Series: Northwest Collection (#3)
ISBN: 9781955593045
Publication Date: November 1, 2022
Paperback, 5 x 8 in.
AUTHOR
EVAN P. SCHNEIDER is the founding editor of Boneshaker: A Bicycling Almanac, which Esquire called “a philosophical love letter to life in the saddle.” Schneider has received fellowships for his work from the Oregon Arts Commission and the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts. In 2011, Willamette Week named A Simple Machine, Like the Lever one of the best books of the year.
PRAISE
“A Portland classic.” —Alexis Smith, author of Glaciers
“Quietly subversive, smart, and funny.” —Steven Church, author of One With the Tiger
“Schneider’s literary cycling uplift is enough to counteract the weight of the world. He nails the essence of being a cyclist and of being young—the yearning, the detachment, the attempted grace, the uncertainty, the gray confusion.” —Jonny Waldman, author of Rust: The Longest War
“The simple machine here is not the bike. The machine the title references is Nick himself, and by extension, his quiet, elegantly dispassionate story.” —Virginia Thayer, Portland Mercury
“All the fresh pleasures of taking a bike ride are to be found in A Simple Machine, Like the Lever. The novel is by turns innocent, lyrical, wistful, funny, and poignant. Necessity has made its observant narrator, Nick, hopelessly thrifty, but what has made him so bafflingly sweet?” —Mary Rechner, author of Nine Simple Patterns for Complicated Women