Rem’s Chance
by Dave J. Andrae
Genre: Literary Fiction / Mystery
Print Length: 236 pages
Reviewed by Nick Rees Gardner
The peace and quiet of middle-age is disrupted by an irrational murderer and a revived teenage punk band in Dave J. Andrae’s Rem’s Chance.
Back in high school, Rem Bruxvoort and his best friend Gene Pawlus were in a punk band. But while The Bubbling Samovars once rocked the Greater Milwaukee DIY scene, and even recorded an album, their fame petered out with adulthood.
Now it’s 2021, the pandemic is more or less under control, and while Gene has found his place as a happily married tech entrepreneur, Rem is in the midst of a midlife crisis and a rough separation with his ex-fiancee. When Gene’s dad dies in his retirement home, the two bandmates reconnect. And Gene’s sister, Julie, a quiet poet deep in the indecision of midlife as well, moves into her dead father’s house and strikes up a close friendship with Rem.
As the story unfolds through these three characters’ shifting points of view, another point of view character, known only as “The Man,” lurks in his van on the periphery, swearing to enact revenge on Gene for a perceived slight years in the past. While Rem and Julie hit it off over long philosophical meanderings and dissertations on the arts (a classic love story), “The Man” interjects the tension of a thriller into the quiet town of Palmera Cay.
Andrae’s second novel is a masterclass on shifting perspectives, a seamless slide from one character’s consciousness to another. Though Rem, Gene, and Julie are generally in agreement on points both aesthetic and philosophical, each offers a unique personality. Rem is fed up with square middle-class life while Gene is comfortably married, happy in his successful career. Julie, like Rem, is also stuck in a moment of questioning her trajectory, a time of life when she is ready for drastic change. Though Rem remains the focus character, all three protagonists emerge as complex humans with similar but intricate ways of seeing the world.
However, the agreeableness between these three characters tends to slow the pacing of the story and makes conversations such as Rem and Julie’s monologues about lesser-known films flag. Conflict takes a backseat much of the time when Rem, Julie, and Gene interact. And while Rem’s points on society and politics may be valid and his description of esoteric films accurate, they sometimes come off as didactic asides or exposition directed at the reader rather than building tension or furthering the story itself. While Rem’s asides may slow the pace, the ominous character of “The Man” serves up enough tension to carry the story.
Contrary to Rem, Gene, and Julie’s agreeableness, “The Man” is slovenly, driven by a weird logic toward violent acts. Armed with a gun and his pothead side-kick Dino, his point of view appearances become more frequent as the book winds on. He turns from distant menace to disturbed psychopath chapter by chapter, making the second half of Rem’s Chance an edge-of-your-seat nail-biter. While Rem, Gene, and Julie are the focus of the book, “The Man” emerges as the primary driving force that turns a quiet story about midlife crises into a life-or-death thriller.
Dave J. Andrae’s Rem’s Chance is a wonderful blend of both quiet and loud, at times as placid as a Sunday morning stroll, but with a background din raucous enough to wake a neighborhood. It doesn’t hurt that his writing is clean and clear and that the understanding and empathy he holds for his characters goes soul deep. While Rem’s Chance moves slowly and the array of factoids may not be every reader’s cup of tea, it’s still easy for a reader to reenter the fictive dream and dive headlong into a world of middle-aged weirdos all trying to slap together a meaningful life.
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