Review of Maxxed Out by David Collins

Maxxed Out

By David Collins

William Morrow

310 pp.

Rating:

David Collins’ Maxxed Out started out so well—a prologue that entices you with the promise of a murder, an author’s voice that drips with self-effacing humor, and some wonderfully crafted sentences that carry you along the fast-paced narrative. But Maxxed Out just peters out with an unfulfilling ending that makes you suspect the author may have maxed himself out.

In the story, D-list novelist David Collins (the author’s attempt to create a fictional memoir, and why not, since so many contemporary memoirists have actually fictionalized large portions of their lives) accepts a job ghostwriting a memoir for celebrity real-estate developer Robert Maxx. Naturally, Maxx is an arrogant, egotistical, dislikable businessman.

At his editor’s urging, Collins attaches himself to Maxx so he can delve into the man’s innermost thoughts, but what Collins soon discovers is that Maxx is facing some potentially empire-ending financial difficulties. (He has maxed himself out.) While on this ghostwriting journey, Collins befriends Jenna, one of Maxx’s personal assistants; encounters Mandy, one of Maxx’s ex-lovers; and struggles with his relationship with Claire, his own ex-wife who he still deeply loves.

Maxxed Out begins with so much promise. Collins (the author) describes Maxx in way that suggests the character is a parody of Donald Trump, from the East European ex-wife to the immobile crust of hair on the top of his head. Collins (the narrator) describes himself as a neurotic, superstitious, literary writer trapped in the world of commercialized publishing.

The opening chapters making some satirical, hysterical, and scathing comments about the contemporary publishing industry, from career-controlling agents to career-wrecking editors. So you expect the satire to be equally hysterical and scathing as Maxx battles ex-girlfriend Mandy, frolics with current girlfriend Caitlin, and struggles to finance the real-estate deal that could immortalize him. But sadly, just when the action picks up, Collins (the author and the narrator) drops the satirical tone, and the novel becomes just another averagely told story.

Rather than exaggerate Maxx’s behavior to poke fun at the Trumps of the world—which would allow the novel to make some brilliant social and economic commentary—Collins tries to paint Maxx as a human. The problem with this approach is Collins wants us to thoroughly hate Maxx, but by making us connect with him as a gruff businessman with a potentially decent interior, we can never truly despise Maxx because Collins has worked so hard to find some good in the man.

Collins does this with all of his characters. No matter how unscrupulous or immoral he claims they are, he focuses on their positive traits. Even the Staten Island don, who Collins seems to fear, is shown to have a good side—he’s a man of his word, and he genuinely cares about the plight of the common working man. How can you hate a Robin Hood?

And to distract us from the main plot of Maxx’s eventual downfall, Collins plays up the subplot with ex-wife Claire, which seems to take up at least one-fifth of the novel. In the final chapters of the book, Collins claims he has done this because he thought, in telling Maxx’s story, the stories of the minor players were just as important, even the story of the author’s ex-wife.

That explanation sounds nice, but it doesn’t hide the reality that Collins loiters on the stories of other people because he doesn’t really know how to handle or skewer Maxx (i.e., the people the author suggests he wants to satirize). For a ghostwriter who is supposed to be learning about the intimate life of a celebrity businessman so he can write an intimate memoir, Collins (the narrator) never really encounters his subject on a personal level.

We see Maxx only in brief glimpses, almost entirely in the office or during business-related encounters, and the few times we make contact with him in non-business settings, we don’t get any insight into his personal life or his personality. I suspect this happened because Collins (the author) couldn’t imagine how the Trumps of the world or other celebrities spend their free time. (He obviously never watched reality TV shows like “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.”)

But Collins never really delves into the personal or intimate lives of his other characters either. But this superficial approach to the characters isn’t really surprising, because ultimately, they aren’t the novel’s main characters; Collins is. Maxxed Out is actually about an apparently washed-up writer trying to cope with life while working on a project that can revive his career and his bank account. Everything else, even the story of Maxx, is just a subplot.

As a result, Collins wraps up these superficial subplots is a hasty, clean manner that seems rushed and brings the novel to a forced, happy, “aren’t our simple non-celebrity lives just wonderful” ending. If that wasn’t enough, he gives the final chapters the feel of a mystery novel, which completely contradicts the sense of satire at the beginning of the book.

So what started as fun, entertaining fiction with a social message devolved into a lifeless, feel-good read that doesn’t offer any insight into any real topic. When you turn the last page, you don’t really care that you have reached the end because you feel nothing for the characters or what they have experienced. You feel more emotion and empathy for the characters and the story in a romance novel.

And that is why Maxxed Out isn’t a literary work, even though someone might try to pitch it as one—because it generates no emotion or lasting impression. Or perhaps Maxxed Out was meant to be a symbol of the pathetic state of contemporary fiction—we are maxed out on literature and philosophically in-depth storytelling; we just want the lighthearted and the meaningless. If that is what you crave, then Maxxed Out just might be for you.