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The Summer Layoff
On Day 1, the narrator of The Summer Layoff is unceremoniously canned from his soul-sucking corporate job. But, he has a generous severance package that affords him the time off to do nothing, for once. Part catalog, part self-help note-to-self, the book is a meditation on the modern metaphysics of work and stasis.
262 pages, Paperback
Published May 22, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
June 10, 2025
Like the author's 2023 "debut," The Belan Deck, this one is once again openly, joyfully, reverentially derivative of David Markson, with original, welcome variations in texture, including a distant relative's diary entries from 1911, a few pages of a work-related screenplay, a page or so of Brainardian "I remember"s, something almost like a gripping short story involving an encounter with a drifter (former MBA-certified Dell employee who's dropped out) and his dog while out hiking/wandering/getting lost along some winding creek running through remote Hill Country territory.
Unlike The Belan Deck, which was mostly about working in the San Francisco tech world, this one's about not-working, no longer enduring the contemporary American techno-office space, having all day to watch the shadow on the sundial. An exploration of the in-between time after being let go, fortuitously at the start of summer, and set in the Austin suburbs, it's the spiritual descendent of Austin's founding art export, Richard Linklater's Slacker, updated for the end of the first quarter of the 21st century, the rangy associative episodic approach maintained (~100 days instead of ~100 characters), with the ensemble cast suitably reduced to a single curatorial intelligence dealing with, for example, the imminence of AI instead of the eventuality of band practice sometime in the afternoon, but still nevertheless very much interested in semi-famous and obscure minutia and overlaps in dates and observations, the literary equivalent of Madonna's pap smear.
Looking forward to the next one to complete the trilogy or complicate the tetralogy or whatever length the project takes. The smaller format plump paperback is a well-made and becoming physical object but I imagine, if you read the ebook, being able to easily search for some of the lesser-known names would nicely extend the book's dimensions. I looked up not nearly enough unknowns but when I did was always glad I had.
Unlike The Belan Deck, which was mostly about working in the San Francisco tech world, this one's about not-working, no longer enduring the contemporary American techno-office space, having all day to watch the shadow on the sundial. An exploration of the in-between time after being let go, fortuitously at the start of summer, and set in the Austin suburbs, it's the spiritual descendent of Austin's founding art export, Richard Linklater's Slacker, updated for the end of the first quarter of the 21st century, the rangy associative episodic approach maintained (~100 days instead of ~100 characters), with the ensemble cast suitably reduced to a single curatorial intelligence dealing with, for example, the imminence of AI instead of the eventuality of band practice sometime in the afternoon, but still nevertheless very much interested in semi-famous and obscure minutia and overlaps in dates and observations, the literary equivalent of Madonna's pap smear.
Looking forward to the next one to complete the trilogy or complicate the tetralogy or whatever length the project takes. The smaller format plump paperback is a well-made and becoming physical object but I imagine, if you read the ebook, being able to easily search for some of the lesser-known names would nicely extend the book's dimensions. I looked up not nearly enough unknowns but when I did was always glad I had.
May 30, 2025
Matt Bucher returns for a second earnest and compelling installment in the literary world of his debut book The Belan Deck (which I also highly recommend). The audience benefits from the author’s lifelong devotion to reading, learning, and experiencing. I was constantly surprised by the depth of joy I felt reading The Summer Layoff’s provocative curation of facts and creeds as well as its honest reflections on the meaning of work and life amidst unemployment. What a treat!
June 22, 2025
Video review https://youtu.be/skINg4BKRT8
June 9, 2025
Matt Bucher is a creative novelist unafraid to shun convention.
The Summer Layoff
—a sequel to
The Belan Deck
although the new book can be read independently—tracks a timely topic: the price we pay pursuing careers. And like The Belan Deck, The Summer Layoff, read in the right mindset, proves unexpectedly moving.
The Austin, Texas, resident’s novels are impactful because they’re honest and, occasionally, abrupt. There’s an authenticity to Bucher’s prose that’s unflattened by saccharine efforts to achieve mass market appeal. That’s not to say The Summer Layoff isn’t relevant to everyone, though. Quite the opposite.
Careers consume decades of most all our lives. John Updike famously wrote in his Pulitzer Prize-winning Rabbit at Rest novel “work, that’s the real way that people die.”
Our commitments to commuting, working, monitoring and responding to emails and text messages, attending Zoom sessions and fulfilling similar professional responsibilities steal the most productive years of our lives. It’s no wonder retirement is such a carrot and motivation; people feel an innate longing to spend time performing the activities and tasks they actually find pleasurable and fulfilling.
I sensed this feeling of loss some 20 years ago. Subsequently, following a vacation to Florida in which I relaxed riding hundreds of Rails to Trails miles, I wrote a short story describing one man’s decision to drop out of corporate life altogether to enable more time for riding and reading. You can read the story, titled Live Bait: Life On The Pinellas Trail, free.
The Summer Layoff covers similar territory. Seemingly sprinkled with random non sequiturs, if you pay attention you’ll find there’s purpose behind the method. We are all subject to distraction and our very work devices and technologies—smartphones and laptops, PowerPoint decks and Zoom sessions—only contribute to the problem we’ve all somehow come to accept.
Except The Summer Layoff’s protagonist chooses not to, at least for one summer. Laid off from his job, the character’s quick calculations confirm severance, subsidized COBRA benefits and unemployment payments mean he can take a season off without significant financial ramifications. And, after thirty years of working, taking a season for oneself has it benefits.
As Bucher notes, “a bucket list almost always features travel and excitement and adventure, but what this time here presupposes is: what if you don’t need to go anywhere or do anything to live out your dreams. Go for a walk, go to bed early, meditate on your fortunate ability to live a life that is the envy of many others.”
And that’s just what the protagonist does. At least for 99 days one summer.
The novel collects numerous intriguing statements, such as “there are no days of my working life in which I lived as fully as I have spent whole days in bed with a book” and “in the age of speed, I began to think, nothing could be more invigorating than going slow. In an age of distraction, nothing can feel more luxurious than paying attention. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is more urgent than sitting still.”
The Summer Layoff is worth your time. So do yourself a favor. Don’t wait until you’re laid off or retire to give it a read.
The Austin, Texas, resident’s novels are impactful because they’re honest and, occasionally, abrupt. There’s an authenticity to Bucher’s prose that’s unflattened by saccharine efforts to achieve mass market appeal. That’s not to say The Summer Layoff isn’t relevant to everyone, though. Quite the opposite.
Careers consume decades of most all our lives. John Updike famously wrote in his Pulitzer Prize-winning Rabbit at Rest novel “work, that’s the real way that people die.”
Our commitments to commuting, working, monitoring and responding to emails and text messages, attending Zoom sessions and fulfilling similar professional responsibilities steal the most productive years of our lives. It’s no wonder retirement is such a carrot and motivation; people feel an innate longing to spend time performing the activities and tasks they actually find pleasurable and fulfilling.
I sensed this feeling of loss some 20 years ago. Subsequently, following a vacation to Florida in which I relaxed riding hundreds of Rails to Trails miles, I wrote a short story describing one man’s decision to drop out of corporate life altogether to enable more time for riding and reading. You can read the story, titled Live Bait: Life On The Pinellas Trail, free.
The Summer Layoff covers similar territory. Seemingly sprinkled with random non sequiturs, if you pay attention you’ll find there’s purpose behind the method. We are all subject to distraction and our very work devices and technologies—smartphones and laptops, PowerPoint decks and Zoom sessions—only contribute to the problem we’ve all somehow come to accept.
Except The Summer Layoff’s protagonist chooses not to, at least for one summer. Laid off from his job, the character’s quick calculations confirm severance, subsidized COBRA benefits and unemployment payments mean he can take a season off without significant financial ramifications. And, after thirty years of working, taking a season for oneself has it benefits.
As Bucher notes, “a bucket list almost always features travel and excitement and adventure, but what this time here presupposes is: what if you don’t need to go anywhere or do anything to live out your dreams. Go for a walk, go to bed early, meditate on your fortunate ability to live a life that is the envy of many others.”
And that’s just what the protagonist does. At least for 99 days one summer.
The novel collects numerous intriguing statements, such as “there are no days of my working life in which I lived as fully as I have spent whole days in bed with a book” and “in the age of speed, I began to think, nothing could be more invigorating than going slow. In an age of distraction, nothing can feel more luxurious than paying attention. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is more urgent than sitting still.”
The Summer Layoff is worth your time. So do yourself a favor. Don’t wait until you’re laid off or retire to give it a read.
June 26, 2025
This was a timely read for me. The short sentences and odd random facts that were sometimes but not always somehow connected, every once in a while sprinkled in with a sentence I assume was said to the narrator while being laid off, like PTSD memories and fragments that sneak into your thoughts, mirrored the way my mind seems to be working now that I am not. I earmarked so many pages of one liners that I want to cut them out like little fortune cookie fortunes and use them in collages. “What matters is that we read the right books at the right times in our lives.” (Page 243)
October 23, 2025
"The Summer Layoff" (2025) is a introspective novel by Matt Bucher, written in the form of diary entries and serving as a loose sequel to his earlier work "The Belan Deck," though it stands alone. The story centers on an unnamed narrator in his late 50s who, after three decades in a draining corporate job, is abruptly laid off on Day 1. Fortunate enough to receive a generous severance package, subsidized health benefits, and unemployment support, he chooses to embrace a 99-day "summer layoff"—a deliberate pause from the grind of meetings, emails, and AI-driven projects to simply exist without obligation.
Over the course of this enforced idleness in his Texas suburb, the protagonist indulges in unhurried routines: long solitary walks, days spent immersed in books or Wikipedia rabbit holes, early bedtimes, and quiet meditations on the rhythms of daily life. What begins as disorientation evolves into a profound reclamation of time, filled with "non sequiturs" that weave together mundane observations and deeper revelations about aging, routine, and rediscovery.
At its core, the book is a sharp critique of white-collar work's metaphysical toll—how it devours prime years through commutes, Zoom fatigue, and endless productivity demands, leaving little room for genuine living. Bucher explores themes of fulfillment beyond career, the radical act of slowing down in an era of constant acceleration and distraction, and the quiet luxury of attention and stillness. It champions simple, local joys over grand escapism, underscoring that true vitality often lies in the overlooked: a full day in bed with a novel, the invigoration of deliberate slowness, or pondering life's inevitabilities without the anchor of a paycheck. Part catalog of stasis, part self-help manifesto, it's a timely reminder that retirement (or layoff) isn't an end but a gateway to reimagining purpose in late-stage capitalism.
Over the course of this enforced idleness in his Texas suburb, the protagonist indulges in unhurried routines: long solitary walks, days spent immersed in books or Wikipedia rabbit holes, early bedtimes, and quiet meditations on the rhythms of daily life. What begins as disorientation evolves into a profound reclamation of time, filled with "non sequiturs" that weave together mundane observations and deeper revelations about aging, routine, and rediscovery.
At its core, the book is a sharp critique of white-collar work's metaphysical toll—how it devours prime years through commutes, Zoom fatigue, and endless productivity demands, leaving little room for genuine living. Bucher explores themes of fulfillment beyond career, the radical act of slowing down in an era of constant acceleration and distraction, and the quiet luxury of attention and stillness. It champions simple, local joys over grand escapism, underscoring that true vitality often lies in the overlooked: a full day in bed with a novel, the invigoration of deliberate slowness, or pondering life's inevitabilities without the anchor of a paycheck. Part catalog of stasis, part self-help manifesto, it's a timely reminder that retirement (or layoff) isn't an end but a gateway to reimagining purpose in late-stage capitalism.
June 20, 2025
Bought it at Book People in Austin & review pending but excited to read something by a local!
August 10, 2025
Much like The Belan Deck, The Summer Layoff paints a picture between the lines. Matt Bucher excels at capturing the churning currents at the surface of thought, while the boulders beneath shape those currents and periodically show themselves in moments of power.
In an era where corporations exercise increasingly more control over every moment of our lives, Matt Bucher asks us to consider whether that is the life we want. Does that bargain make sense to us? Maybe it does and maybe it doesn’t. But we should at least think about it.
In an era where corporations exercise increasingly more control over every moment of our lives, Matt Bucher asks us to consider whether that is the life we want. Does that bargain make sense to us? Maybe it does and maybe it doesn’t. But we should at least think about it.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews