Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Indecision: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Indecision: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Indecision: A Novel
    Audiobook8 hours

    Indecision: A Novel

    Written by Benjamin Kunkel

    Narrated by Patrick Frederic

    3/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Benjamin Kunkel's brilliantly comic debut novel concerns one of the central maladies of our time-a pathological indecision that turns abundance into an affliction and opportunity into a curse.

    Dwight B. Wilmerding is only twenty-eight, but he's having a midlife crisis. Of course, living a dissolute, dorm like existence in a tiny apartment and working in tech support at the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer are not especially conducive to wisdom.

    And a few sessions of psychoanalysis conducted by his sister have distinctly failed to help with his biggest problem: a chronic inability to make up his mind.

    Encouraged by one of his roommates to try an experimental pharmaceutical meant to banish indecision, Dwight jumps at the chance (not without some meditation on the hazards of jumping) and swallows the first fateful pill. And when all at once he is "pfired" from Pfizer and invited to a rendezvous in exotic Ecuador with the girl of his long-ago prep-school dreams, he finds himself on the brink of a new life.

    The trouble-well, one of the troubles-is that Dwight can't decide if the pills are working. Deep in the jungles of the Amazon, in the foreign country of a changed outlook, his would-be romantic escape becomes a hilarious journey into unbidden responsibility and unwelcome knowledge.

    How to affirm happiness without living in constant denial of the ways of the world? How to commit, and to what? At once funny and poignant, gentle and outrageous, finely intelligent and proudly silly, Indecision rings with a voice of great energy and originality, while its deeper inquiries reflect the concerns and style of a generation.


    "Here's what Indecision gives you: sustained social and intellectual comedy, possibly the last but certainly the funniest Superfluous Man in modern literature, drive-by satire, plus detailed set-piece send-ups of Young Adult colgrads at work and play. The mockery is
    humane. The tale of Dwight Wilmerding is told with style and care. And there's a surprising ending. Benjamin Kunkel, welcome!"
    -Norman Rush, author of Mating


    From the Hardcover edition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateAug 30, 2005
    ISBN9780739322109
    Unavailable
    Indecision: A Novel
    Author

    Benjamin Kunkel

    BENJAMIN KUNKEL is the author of the best-selling novel Indecision and a founding editor of n+1 magazine. He has written for The New Yorker, Dissent, The New York Review of Books, and the London Review of Books.

    Related to Indecision

    Related audiobooks

    Satire For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Books Briefing: The Best Books of 2020

      Dec 25, 2020

      Our favorite titles from a year that has highlighted the particularities of that thing called reading: Your weekly guide to the best in books

      4 min read

    • Article

      Book Club

      Sep 15, 2021

      Of the 1000-plus books that have landed on my desk since the debut of this feature, not one has been as astonishing as this one. Brooks is Scientia Professor of Evolution at UNSW Sydney, where he founded and directs the Evolution and Ecology Research

      5 min read

    • Article

      'Mental,' 'Gorilla And The Bird': Two Starkly Different Accounts Of Bipolar Disorder

      Oct 3, 2017

      Both books vividly capture the dizzying highs of mania and the shattering lows of depression that mark the disease. Mental's approach is comprehensive, Gorilla and the Bird's more intimate.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Wanderers

      Jul 17, 2019

      Wanderers
      1 min read

    • Article

      Squid Game Owes Its Popularity To Anxieties Of Modern Life

      Oct 9, 2021

      Squid Game, a Netflix series made in Korea by Hwang Dong-hyuk, was released on 17 September and within 10 days was the platform’s highest ranking show in 90 countries. It’s the first time a Korean drama has ever been at the top of the US charts; 95%

      3 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Matt Seidel

      Dec 15, 2019

      Three other works that stuck with me this year involved men in trouble, one farcical take on contemporary society and two sly, meta-literary comedies. The post A Year in Reading: Matt Seidel appeared first on The Millions.

      6 min read

    • Article

      Hellbent and Hydebound

      Oct 19, 2022

      Where Stevenson’s contemporaries explored specific tensions within the Victorian psyche, 'Jekyll and Hyde' pinned the split personality of the era to the page. The post Hellbent and Hydebound appeared first on The Millions.

      6 min read

    • Article

      Dwight Schrute Was a Warning

      Oct 29, 2020

      Dwight Schrute Was a Warning
      9 min read

    • Article

      Yes, Make Coronavirus Jokes

      Apr 3, 2020

      Yes, Make Coronavirus Jokes
      6 min read

    • Article

      FILM & TELEVISION

      Feb 10, 2020

      I have chronic illnesses and pain, and have been disbelieved and patronised by some health professionals. So I’m glad the Guardian Australia’s associate news editor has written up her global investigation into how women with various illnesses (most n

      3 min read

    • Article

      Brain Food

      Mar 29, 2023

      Brain Food
      3 min read

    • Article

      2020 Is Winding Down, But The Drama Isn't: Read These Books Now To Make Sense Of It

      Sep 9, 2020

      Trainwreck. Demented. A dumpster fire of a year. We've all seen the social media memes, and most of us are ready to be done with 2020. But it isn't over yet. We still have a rancorous election season ahead of us as the country continues to reel from

      7 min read

    • Article

      The Life of the Mind: On Helen DeWitt’s ‘Some Trick’

      May 31, 2018

      Helen DeWitt’s great subject is genius, an ambitious undertaking made less so by the fact that she may just be one herself. DeWitt is less concerned with the nature of genius, or if such a thing even exists—in her fiction, it undoubtedly does—than sh

      5 min read

    Reviews for Indecision

    3/5

    228 ratings17 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 2/5
      This is the story of Dwight, an indecisive twenty-eight-year-old who finds himself fired for (almost) stealing company secrets. One of his roommates gives him a sample of a drug that is supposed to encouraged decisiveness. With that pharmaceutical cocktail in his system, Dwight hops a plane to Ecuador to meet up with an old high school flame. What can I say? I thought this book was clever and smart. Unfortunately, I hated the characters and didn't much care for the plot. In the end, all I can say was I didn't really enjoy it. Ah well.
    • 3/5
      Odd thing happend: I have apparently read this book, and not that long ago (I know, because I have made notes in the back which is something I only started doing in the last couple of years) - but then I went and forgot I have read it - I have just completely ERASED the memory of it. This cannot be good, I thought, while re-reading it, and I was right. Somehow I could not muster enough interest for it. The three stars I give because of the quotes I have noted the first time around, which are quite clever, really, and which tell me a little aboutt Kunkel. Here is my favourite, it is from the closing of the book (pg. 270) and I probably really like it right now because I have just returned from a short, but very intensive road trip with a large itinerary: Ever since I was a kid it had always impressed me how through the narrowing operations of travel, and from out of so many possible destinations, places of such incredible specificity will realize themselves right in front of you.
    • 4/5
      I did laugh several times reading this, which is uncommon for me. I felt like I really got the joke Kunkel was making about the self-absorption we can participate in as North Americans, as well as his mockery of our "raised consciousness". And yet, I didn't think the author was unnecessarily cruel.
    • 1/5
      Imagine you are in your twenties, you live in a rich country, you are healthy, you are reasonably intelligent, you have had an education, actually, you have everything half the world longs for, yet you have a problem too. The problem is this: you have so many possibilities, so many options, so much choice, you just can't decide what to do. You just can't decide, so you end up not making any decisions at all. Life just happens to you, girlfriends or boyfriends come and go, jobs just come on your way, not because you really wanted them, but you just took what came along. I suppose many of us in the "western world" can relate to that situation to some extent. So just suppose there were a drug curing this state of indecision. A drug that would help you to know what you want and go for it. That is the central idea of this book, and as such an interesting and fascinating one. What would happen? Dwight Wilmerding is the lucky chap who can try this medicine in Benjamin Kunkel's novel that was much hyped when it was published in 2005. A thought provoking theme, a hype, you will understand, my expectations were high.However, I feel incredibly disappointed! I still can't decide whether this book was supposed to be funny, in a sarcastic way, and wasn't, or if it was supposed to be deep - and wasn't. I may hope that the intention was to be funny about this stereotypical spoiled American in his twenties, and that I just didn't get the humour, because it is too full of references that a non-American wouldn't understand. I just don't hope that this was intended to be serious, because it is so full of complete superficial wannabe deepness, that I just couldn't believe someone would seriously write that, AND be able to find a publisher. No, it must have been intended as a farce...Apart from that, the story is, well, not very interesting either. We're introduced to Dwights indecisive life in New York, he starts to take the medicine, and things start to happen. He loses his job, he travels to Ecuador, he meets a girl. However, most of what happens is not caused by decisiveness at all. It is still just happening. And he is happy about it. I suppose that's the big message, that you should accept that this is life, full of doubt. Wow. I feel so enlightened now.....
    • 4/5
      Ultimate slacker dude gets access to a drug to help him overcome his flakey indecisiveness. Not life changing but enjoyable.
    • 2/5
      Good start, but halfway through the story became less and less compelling. The drugstories are great but the morale at the end of the book is terrible .. and it feels like a cheap detective plot has been unraveled. I got less and less sympathy for the main character.
    • 2/5
      started off pretty funny, became a great travel story, then turned into a weird drug story, and ended in a political "moral of the story" which was apparently the whole point of the book.
    • 3/5
      Cartoon cut-out vague New Yorker type goes on a journey, has a few thoughts and gets the girl. Readable, and with some beautiful language here and there, but ultimately pointless.
    • 1/5
      Indecision is about an unmotivated man named Dwight living in New York City. Dwight is in his late twenties and is stuck in a dead-end job and a dead-end life. Part of Dwight's problem is the pervasive indecision that, in Dwight's opinion, plagues his generation. As a solution to this problem, a pharmaceutical company develops a pill that cures the patient of his inability to make decisions. The pill taker will always know exactly what he or she wants at any given moment. That is as far as I got. I could not finish even half of this pedantic and obnoxious novel. The premise gave this book so much potential. Too bad Kunkel squandered it with his need to impress and show off. Instead of attempting to write an engaging and interesting book, Kunkel used the writing of Indecision as an exercise in vanity. Every sentence seems to scream, "See how smart I am?!" The sentences and paragraphs are convoluted and annoying; the narrator’s voice insufferable. Everyone knew “that guy” in either high school or college who felt his superior mental acuity gave him the right to condescend to everyone around him; who thought his putdowns were witty and amusing (even if only to himself); who read and quoted philosophers; and whose sarcastic vitriol was a really a shield protecting his inner pain. Well both Dwight and his creator, Benjamin Kunkel, are “that guy”. If only there was a pill that could make me forget this book!
    • 3/5
      A neat premise. The first half of the novel is quite witty. The second half feels tacked on. It remained a good read (I devoured it!) but it was a different novel.You know how even most good comedies exchange laughs for plot as the movie rolls on? It was kind of like that. But that doesn't stop me from seeing those comedies and it shouldn't stop anyone from reading this book.
    • 3/5
      A funny book about a man who swallows a pill that should cure him of his indecision. The problem is, he can't decide whether the pill actually works. He travels to ecuador to meet a high school sweetheart and of course something completely different happens. A highly original book.
    • 3/5
      Thought the starting premise was very interesting, I was really looking forward to a fun, original story plot. As it turns out, it never really "took off" and it somewhat left me on my appetite.
    • 2/5
      Well-written, funny, and initially engaging. Unfortunately, the story doesn't go anywhere and I liked the characters less and less as the novel went on.
    • 3/5
      Slow paced and dark, as expected. But it works.
    • 4/5
      my ultimate favorite book. helped me through my tough time. planning to read it again in several years and see how I myself have changed over time. read M. Kakutani's review on Times. you'll love it.
    • 4/5
      This book is never about what I thought it ws about. And after its philosophy, family angst, drug use, and over-education, it settled on socialist activism which was just a little bit disappointing. The writing was clever and the story-telling compelling though. "I felt shamed into modesty by the ignorant enthusiasm of the day before..." Themes: 10 year school reunion, idealized romances, stagnating careers, economic disparity, believing in something.
    • 3/5
      I can't decide whether i like this novel or not.