"Seinfeld's nine seasons are an extended ode to irritation as the greatest enforcer of social norms, made funnier by the fact that the show's protagonists are all irritating. The series demonstrates the joys of fictional annoyance. An encounter that could wreck a day in real life can, on-screen or in a book, give the audience an enjoyable sense of righteousness-or recognition."
"Like Jonathan Franzen, his direct predecessor in literary annoyance, Martin uses his gifts as a prose stylist to get readers to remain with these aggravating protagonists long enough to develop sympathy for them. Down Time, his most recent novel, puts this technique to an especially rigorous test."
"Down Time is the first novel encountered that vividly evokes the pre-vaccine months without falling into that trap. Martin expressed bemusement that more authors weren't digging into the ambiguous etiquette surrounding almost any social activity, the intense emotions and acting out."
Andrew Martin follows the Seinfeld principle of using irritation and annoying characters to explore social dynamics and enforce norms. His novels feature privileged Millennials and 30-somethings whose behavior strains reader tolerance, yet Martin's skilled prose styling generates sympathy for these aggravating protagonists. Down Time, his recent novel, applies this technique to entitled characters navigating the first pandemic year. Unlike much pandemic literature that merely documents the period, Down Time vividly evokes the pre-vaccine months by exploring the ambiguous social etiquette and intense emotions surrounding everyday activities during lockdown, avoiding the trap of shallow memory-recording.
Read at The Atlantic
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