Wince

by Drew Nellins Smith

Winston Fisher, Jr. is broke, unemployed, and coming off his third divorce. High on cocaine, he wanders through his rented McMansion in a bathrobe, taking little notice of the piles of takeout containers or unopened mail, or even his firearms scattered throughout-a collection vast enough to be called an arsenal. His mother calls constantly. His newly engaged daughter texts updates about the wedding. They still think of him as the man he once was. The only people who know better are his coke dealer and his closest friend, an escort.

What begins as a side hustle-tweaking AR-15s in his garage-becomes something more lucrative, more dangerous, and yet somehow more boring than Winston imagined. The tedium breaks when he stumbles upon a cartel-run stash house hidden in a south Texas junkyard. Fantasizing about robbing it, he begins to wonder if he's desperate enough to follow through.

Part character study, part slow-motion implosion, Drew Nellins Smith's Wince is an unsettling satire about American masculinity, depression, gun culture, and what happens when rock-bottom is mistaken for a return to stability.

303 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 4, 2026

About the author

Drew Nellins Smith’s essays, reviews, and interviews have appeared in many places in print and online, including The Believer, Tin House, Paste Magazine,The Millions, The Daily Beast, and Electric Literature. He lives in Austin, TX. Arcade is his first novel.

Reviews

[Matthew Kinsman]

Cathartic

Hilarious, profane, unsentimental and unapologetic. The perfect book for Gen Xers seeing the finish line coming at them like a train. Highly recommended as long as being offended isn't your default.

[Oliver Clarke]

An incredibly good character study of a man who is both appalling and irresistible.

[Kyle Kirshbom]

Mid-to-post-Covid cocaine Batman, caved up in an Austin suburb, self-mythologizing through blow, guns, and Heat-level crime while a zonked-out Mexican dealer, a whore, and a thousand DoorDashers replace Alfred