The Review of Contemporary Fiction

Big If, by Mark Costello
reviewed by Robert L. McLaughlin

Mark Costello. Big If. Norton, 2002. 315 pp. $24.95.

In Big If Mark Costello, probably most familiar to readers of this journal as co-author with David Foster Wallace of Signifying Rappers, offers a slice of contemporary America in which image and reality cavort in an increasingly complex and uncertain dance. The main characters, Vi and Jens Apslund, are introduced as children of the seventies, the offspring of a father, an insurance claims adjuster, who questioned in his own quiet, Republican, New England way the claims of absolute truth and determinate reality. Crossing out the God in In God We Trust on his money, then replacing it with Us, Apslund père cast his vote for chance and contingency. Adult Jens, a computer wiz, becomes a programmer for BigIf, an online game set in a postapocalyptic Southwest in which players try to work their way past mutant monsters to the Pacific. Vi becomes a Secret Service agent assigned to the detail protecting the vice president, who, à la Al Gore, is running for president. Both Apslunds are in the uncomfortable business of creating simulations of reality while keeping death at bay. Jens tries to sell his bosses on a program to make the shadows in BigIf more realistic, while they want a new monster, Todd, a Columbine-esque adolescent killer. Vi and her team are responsible not only for protecting the VP but also for making his morning jogs and coffee klatches appear normal, despite the mammoth disruptions in traffic, business, and lives they occasion. There’s a wealth of smart, funny, and cleverly drawn character sketches and takes on contemporary society here, though one wishes that it all came together more completely—too much is left up in the air, and there seems to be very little payoff for such an elaborate setup. Big If is better enjoyed in its parts than as a whole.