Hard Feelings: Jason Starr

“I ordered a Scotch and soda. I put the glass up to my lips and paused, asking myself, Do you really want to do this? Myself said, You bet.”

Hard Feelings follows its first person narrator, Richie Segal as his life slides out-of-control. Richie is a salesman, once a top salesman of computer networks, but when the book opens, he’s in a slump. Sales call after sales call lead to bleak days at work, and to Richie’s boss hinting about termination. Something’s off with Richie. Perhaps it’s the alcohol. Perhaps it’s the pressure. Or perhaps it’s because he catches a glimpse of Michael Rudnick, an old neighbour from Brooklyn. ….

Richie and his wife, Paula, are a childless New York couple who live paycheck to paycheck. Their short evenings after work are composed of selecting which takeout to order, watching TV and walking the dog. It’s a daily grind, with the possibility of children and life in the suburbs the rewards at the end of the rainbow. Tensions exist between Richie and Paula, and at first it isn’t quite clear why Paula doesn’t want children. Perhaps it’s because her career is on the rise and she makes more money than Richie, or perhaps she’s having an affair. Richie, as our unreliable narrator, never quite tells the entire story. ….

Richie’s sighting of Rudnick coincides with his career and marriage slump. Soon, he can’t stop thinking about Rudnick and how Rudnick molested him years earlier. Rudnick is now a successful lawyer, but Richie, reeling from bad memories mixed with booze, wants to make Rudnick pay.  Obsessed with Rudnick, suspicious that Paula is cheating on him, Richie’s life spirals out of control.

Richie Segal is a typical Jason Starr protagonist, a working man who’s pressured to breaking point by bills, work and relationships. The author creates a believable character, an ordinary working stiff who suddenly finds he can’t cope with life and only violence seems to let off pressure. As an unreliable narrator, at first we just get slivers of problems between reality and life as Richie sees it, but these moments become more obvious as the narrative continues.

Finally, my new workstation was ready. I organized myself and got to work as quickly as possible. I was so embroiled in what I was doing I almost forgot that I was sitting in a cubicle, until Joe from Marketing came over to me and said, “This really sucks, man.” Joe was a nice guy and I knew he meant well, but I still felt patronized. To everyone in the office I was a big joke now. They were probably whispering about me in the bathroom and by the water cooler: “Did you hear what happened to Richie Segal? He got kicked out of his office today.” Jackie, a young secretary, passed by and said “Hi, Richard.” When I had an office, she used to say “hello, Richard.” But now that I was a fellow cubicle worker she obviously felt comfortable and informal enough around me to say “Hi.” 

With Richie as the narrator, the story, of course, is filtered through his perception. So at times Richie doesn’t understand what his wife, Paula’s problem is or why the dog, Otis, cowers when Richie comes through the door. It’s a very human tendency to tell a story from our own slant, but this sort of character is Jason Starr’s specialty. Starr is not a stylist but his strength lies in getting into the heads of his male protagonists and following their twisted thoughts to the bitter end.

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