The Adventurist

by J. Bradford Hipps

In the anonymous office park of a modern software company, whip-smart software engineer Henry Hurt is a man in the middle: of life, of career, and of self-assessment. Henry is mired in his corporate responsibilities until his deathless office existence is torpedoed by the loss of his mother.

Overcome by "the pall," Henry seeks escape in a quest for love and purpose, which is occasioned by a crisis in his company's fortunes. Dodging an Iago-like rival, he finds love with a colleague in his department, endangers his bond with his family, and finally confronts the single urgent question of his life.

The Adventurist is about relationships: Henry has complicated ones with his sister, Gretchen, who has stayed at home with their father; his lover Jane, a sleek and efficient mirror image of Henry; and a tantalizing potential girlfriend, Madison, the ultimate free spirit. But his relationship to the responsibilities in that anonymous office park may change his fortunes even more than the women in his life.

Genres: Fiction, Ebooks, Adult

288 pages, Paperback

First published April 26, 2016

About the author

A former programmer, J. Bradford Hipps turned to fiction after a ten-year software career. He received his graduate degree from the University of Houston Creative Writing Program, where he was awarded the Inprint Michener Prize. He lives with his wife and children in Texas.

Reviews

[A. S. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Disclaimer: I received an ARC of this book for free as part of the Goodreads Giveaways program.

My second one star review of the year! Unlike Kiera Cass's The Selection, this book isn't offensive and stupid as it is boring. Literally nothing happens in this book. The blurb on the back of the book made it seem right up my alley: a sweeping storyline about relationships between people and a protagonist who is just trying to live a normal life and dealing with the death of a parent.

The thing is, none of that epic stuff actually happens in this book. It's pretty much a workday in any given office, with the same politics and potential rivals, office romances, and fear that a layoff is coming. The NBC show The Office takes those mundane office tasks and mines it for comedy; the movie Office Space is slightly comedic but mostly veers towards the tragedy of an average dude's life. The Iago-like rival? I can't even tell who this character is supposed to be, Ian or Keith. In any case, both are not so much villains so much as unpleasant people to work with. Jane has no appealing characteristics other than being pretty and talkative; she spends most of her time being drunk and avoiding talking about divorce with her husband. Why did the author bother with the Madison plot line? She added literally nothing to Henry's understanding about his life.

As for dealing with the death of his mother and his father's oncoming dementia, that hardly happens. Most of Henry's thoughts are consumed by work rather than his family. I wish the author spent more time developing this relationship, because it had the most potential for growth and understanding. She's the one who is the caregiver to their parents, so if the book intends for Henry to deal with his parents' declines, then she needs more of a central role.

On top of this, the prose was just awful. This was like reading a high schooler's SAT practice words notebook, where he has to write out sentences using the new vocabulary. There are so many $10 words in here that the book is so unnatural. No one talks or thinks like that. Or if they do, they're supremely annoying. I've got a large vocabulary and I know I don't speak like a pretentious snob. I really hate Hemingway, but at least his prose was simple and accessible.

There just wasn't much to like in here. It was almost painful to read. Sorry!

[Jonathan Pool · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to Sue https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/1... for this recommendation. Exciting fiction is not normally associated with the machinations of corporate life, and especially the sales department. It was this, though, that drew me to “The Adventurist”.
I liked the Company politics, the in-fighting, the knowingly manipulative joust between buyer and seller. The two main business development executives at Cyber Systems are Ian and Keith. Their Machiavellian approach to winning the business and chasing down and achieving quarterly targets resonates with me and reminds me of (thankfully) my short lived experience of divisional targets and head office scrutiny.
This part of the book was excellent. The departmental shenanigans; Sales, Marketing, Engineering, Operations and Management, in the pursuit of computer system sales.
If as reader you enjoyed David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross (real estate sales) or David Szalay’s London and The South East (advertising sales) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... you will probably enjoy The Adventurist.

It’s not just a book about sales. Family grief brought about by death and old age illness is well enough described, but this is territory much more extensively covered in other novels, and more subtlely.
Our main protagonist, Henry Hurt, struck me as anything but an “Adventurist”, and I assume this title is ironic. He is a blank, he lacks character, his conversation is stilted and limited, and I couldn’t really buy in to the idea that he was wrestling between corporate expectation and real, family, life.
He gets what he deserves.

So, if you are interested in and/or have experienced the ghastly hype of divisional sales targets, this book is a great reminder of why you got out (hopefully).
If that world leaves you cold I don’t think the musings of Henry do enough to carry it.

[Jennifer · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was soooo bad LMAO. Sofiya annotated this though which made it actually interesting and worthy of the one star it was given🤩
Took me an embarrassingly long time to read…
SO many problems with this book:
- the affair as the romance in this book. Wtf.
- too many comparisons between his corporate job and war??? wtf.
- this book is called “The Adventurist” but there’s literally NO adventure. Wtf.
- no character was likeable except Gretchen the sister.

[Sofiya · Rating 1 out of 5]

Like a 1.5 maybe LOL. It was fun annotating tho, so that was a bonus.

This book was horribly boring. Henry was bland. Jane too. All Henry’s coworkers sound boring, rude, and too absorbed into their world of working to care for anyone else. I only really liked Gretchen, and the Dad.

Also, the author really decided to use every possible complicated word that nobody has ever heard of, so the writing does not flow. Plus the white author used the n-word, so that’s also a no-no from me. And the depictions of females too didn’t sit well with me.

I hated the cheating. I don’t care the circumstance, it’s never okay to cheat. And what did Jane do? Cheat. Gross. And Henry knows she’s married too, so that just ruined the entire romance. Which ruined the book, because the rest of the plot was flat asf and I could not care for an engineer’s corporate America job.

There was barely a plot, and the slight one it had was boring me to death. Who wants to read a good chunk of text of engineering and corporate jargon and a cheating wife? Not me!

The title is deceiving, because Henry is anything but an adventurist. And I get the message, that you are more than your job, and that you should get out a bit more and achieve your true potential. But did Henry do that? No. Also, they never addressed the fact that he most definitely needed therapy with the pall that kept overshadowing him… why bother including mental health issues if you’re not gonna address it properly?

Overall, boring. Would not recommend LOL. But was suuuuper fun to just annotate on the book to give to Jennifer.

[Dotty · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wow, I know this guy, or several guys like this - at work.

This is an existential book - a paean to the limited expectations of middle managers in the tech industry - and what happens when their imaginations (also limited) get away from them.

The only good things to say about the protagonist - he was good at his job, he was good to his family. Otherwise, he had no interests or hobbies, didn't seem to have any friends outside of work, pined for a woman at work who was married and (seems to me) out of his league.

My advice to such protagonists - get a hobby outside of work, get some friends outside of work - become a person you would be interested in knowing - then that woman out of your league might actually be attainable.

[Joan · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite first novel in recent memory. (Usually I avoid first novels because, well, first novels.) The writing is so assured, so generous and full of human decency, and (mostly) so perfectly wry that I had trouble putting it down. The story is a "slow boil" so it's not for everyone. But the characters and Henry's (narrator) observations are so sharply drawn that I was happy to go along at the story's pace. Re the ending, I will only say the book's devil is not who I thought it would be.

[Nolan Wright · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best book of fiction I have read in years. It shows the ways in which we distract ourselves from the true nature of our existence. It does so with sharp wit and even sharper insights, and it ultimately reminds us that if we don’t confront reality it will eventually confront us.

[SueKich · Rating 5 out of 5]

This. Is. The Business.


The story may be slight but through the inner life of its narrator Henry Hurt (read into the name what you will) this exceptionally good novel delivers an underlying truth about the human condition. A bright but in all other respects just an ordinary guy, Henry is the manager of Engineering at Cyber Systems, a mid-size software company in the American South. The business is struggling; it needs to get new accounts fast. Henry likes and respects his boss, shrewd cookie Keith, and he pines for Jane, a married co-worker in marketing.

On Henry’s trips home to visit family, his sister Gretchen berates him for not doing something more worthwhile with his life, with his career. But Henry loves his work and, with so many jobs on the line, he wants to see the company survive. To him, this is every bit as worthwhile as his sister’s more obvious ‘do-gooding’. Meanwhile, both siblings are concerned for their widower father whose sharp brain seems to be failing. Henry and Gretchen’s mother has been dead for almost a year and her shadowy presence hovers not only over the three family members but also over the reader. This is very well done.

J. Bradford Hipps is a writer unknown to me and, I suspect, to many others. I found myself re-reading sentence after sentence, paragraph after paragraph. From an abundance of seemingly quotable chunks, few can really be appreciated out of context but here is something self-contained that at least may provide an idea of the thoughtfulness of the writing. This is Henry talking about Cyber’s new sales manager Ian whom, it is fervently hoped, will be the company’s saviour:

“What is unusual – what is baffling in fact, what accounts, perhaps, for this sudden unmooring, this seasick sense – is how fluently he moves from tragedy to confession to absurdity. He glides over experience as if on a skin. There is nothing, it seems, that can’t be covered over, smoothed out, and made to match, the serious and the unserious, the devout and the glancing. All that is wanted is a ready, crazy-world shrug. But how does method come to him? Does he meet sadness, strangeness, as would a crusader: eye to eye, keenly seeing the world as it is but refusing to be budged from his own pilgrim’s progress? Or is he as inattentive to the puzzle, the dissonance, as one thumbing channels (…poker, Bogart, beer ad, massacre…) before dropping off to sleep?” I love that parenthesis.

This quiet story of office life thrown off kilter is a cliché-free zone. My one quibble, if quibble there must be, is that the dialogue of Henry’s love-interest Jane is just a bit too clever to be convincing. (I mean, who uses the world ‘simulacrum’ in everyday speech?) So just one caveat in a rich, wry and deeply moving reading experience. Ah me - how wonderful it is to discover such a fine new writer.

[Michael Martz · Rating 3 out of 5]

J. Bradford Hipps' novel The Adventurist (his first, I believe), was a challenge. Not because of its length (it's relatively short) or poor writing (the prose is excellent), but due to the lack of a real plot.

The Adventurist is a theme book that's about relationships, memories, and reflection woven around the actions of a group of management-types from a software company on the edge of despair because they're not selling enough product. One of the managers is the narrator of the book and the subject of the memories, reflections, and relationship issues that are at its heart. He seems to be a decent guy, but his decisions aren't always the best and that tends to drive the themes of this book.

The Adventurist isn't a book that's right up my alley. I decided to check it out because it was portrayed in an early review as a slice of life novel about American business. I found that to be very true. The management decisions, interactions between employees and bosses, group interactions among the managers, manipulations, 'talking points', meeting strategies, etc. all seemed real to me. I spent a lot of my career working with people like almost every character in the book. The problem is that most of that stuff isn't interesting to most people. It's interesting to me because I can say to myself 'hey, I know that guy!' at certain points, but I fear that a lot of readers will think there are better settings for getting into relationship issues than a meeting room full of IT folks in a hotel in Kansas during a snowstorm.

Ultimately, the writing is the redeeming quality in the book. The 'pall of depression' which I think was a term used somewhere in The Adventurist, is a good description of its overall feel. The themes and relationships are the important considerations and they in effect drive the actions of the main character. The novel's conclusion is sad, understandable, and consistent with what could be expected based on the characters and decisions. All-in-all, I'd recommend The Adventurist for the writing certainly, and for the rest of the action if you've spent a number of years toiling in management in corporate America and you want to re-live some of your past.

[Miche · Rating 5 out of 5]

Surprisingly wonderful! Never expected to enjoy the main character so much. He is a fascinating person to spend time with, for contemplating the big questions of life. Very admirable that the prose is so beautiful and quotable, and yet with very little action the story pulls you along. I simultaneously wanted to savor every sentence while also feeling compelled to rush on to find out how it all turns out. I hope this book gets some major circulation. I'd love for it to be the next book we're all talking about, like the days of Cutting for Stone.

[Puremantis · Rating 2 out of 5]

This story takes the reader on a whirlwind. The author's creative writing background is certainly shown through his excessive use of words. I have never felt so bogged down by a story. The main character, Henry, spends so much time in his elaborate thoughts that sometimes it is hard to tell where his internal monologue ends and the actual dialogue begins. Maybe I'm just an unsympathetic person, but I could not relate to the character at all. Perhaps this style of an essay-length rambling inner monologue is familiar or comforting to other readers but the amount of words that he assigns to his everyday feelings just makes me feel super efficient in my own self-appraisal. I gave this book two stars because I did really want to know how it ended, I was interested in whether Henry would experience personal growth by the end of the book. SPOILER ALERT: He didn't.

[Brad B · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found The Adventurist to be an interesting story with well-defined characters (except, sadly, for the protagonist!) that was burdened by flowery, philosophical meanderings that end up not really going anywhere. Our adventurer's very name - Henry Hurt - is too obvious and the cliche of having him pursue an office romance with a married woman (not a spoiler, as this is disclosed in the first few pages) makes him seem frivolous. There are genuine insights into office politics, the author clearly understands the absurd pretentiousness of contemporary American business. But the meandering narrative and an unsatisfying resolution left me feeling that the author is more suited to writing corporate capers than personal dramas.

[Barton Hacker · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Audio book)

This was an entertaining read, but very forgettable once completed. More than once I had to look at the synopsis to remind myself of the story, but once I did, came away thinking, "oh yeah, that was a good book."

[Lisa Bertagnoli · Rating 2 out of 5]

Executive summary: A lot of frosting. Not a lot of cake.

Rarely have I been so bored by so much description. For a while, it was great - nice to read some writing in addition to some plot. But soon, the writing overtook the plot. The plot disappeared. So did the characters. All seemed to be hidden underneath a thick layer of fondant, fondant in the form of way too much description. Every person's move in the book warranted at least a sentence of description.

As for the story: Totally predictable and not much there there. When the plot starts to thicken, as it were, even the densest of readers can figure out what's going to happen.

[Leena Nanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good book! All of my friend who have ever done IT consulting will find this book interesting. The salesman in the book is a 21st century Willie Loman, but much more clever. There is a twist to the ending that surprised me a little. Overall, this is a good book for those of us in "corporate" jobs in the new century. Recommended!

[Bridget · Rating 1 out of 5]

I just couldn't get into this. I didn't care for the writing style - it just didn't flow right for me. I ended up skipping a bunch in the middle to read the ending...seems I didn't miss much.

[Julie Hunt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the author's wit and beautifully written descriptions of even ordinary things in this book, and I totally did not see the end coming!

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I couldn't finish it. Decently written, but boring.

[Jim Leckband · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fairly obvious roman à clef for a first novel. Which is not a knock in my book - write about what and who you know. The author definitely knows his way around corporate software companies, and the people who work there. Unfortunately, I do as well, and he captures the pressure, inanity, cruelty and uselessness perfectly.

Henry Hurt (name is definitely not emblematic) is a software director mired in a company that is on track to having a string of quarters below targets. As a survivor of a company whose main product was jiggering the quarterly numbers and Wall Street expectations until it all came crashing down in bankruptcy, SEC actions, and shareholder lawsuits, I sympathize. It's a mugs game.

The book is divided into two main parts as I see it - the first where the Henry sees the sales director, straight out of the losers in Glengarry Glen Ross, malapropping his way out of a sure sale. The second with the new sales director, straight out of the steak knives sales director in "Glengarry", rounding up management to go on a trip to salvage the quarter and the business unit.

boolean spoiler;
spoiler = 1;
Hurt's basic hurt is that he takes things at face value and doesn't see deep enough into motivations and hidden agendas. Which is why you don't take engineers on sales calls. They tell the technical truth. Sales people don't want the truth, they want the sale. So this book is essentially a "and then the scales fall from his eyes" and he recapitulates the loser sales director by Bartlebying in a sales call.
spoiler = 0;

In the midst of all this is a family drama with Henry's family dealing with several tragedies. Again I sympathize. I had to solve a database emergency the night before my brother's funeral. I was a good trooper - just like Henry is, until he isn't. I say - good one Henry!

[Ella · Rating 1 out of 5]

(The further I get from finishing this, the lower my estimation gets. I'm closer to one star right now, but let's call it 1.5)

When I was a kid, I dreamt of being a secretary because I loved the adding machine found in my dad's office. I still have an unhealthy love for office supplies, but I've never once wanted to work in a cubicle, yet for the duration of this book, it felt like I was doing exactly that.

When not droning on about the office (just the minutiae of caches, passwords, software environment...) Henry Hurt is portrayed so kindly by his author that it was hard not to feel something for him. It would have been easy to make Henry and everyone else a complete fool. Instead the exact opposite happens. So the very sympathetic character is portrayed as a brilliant employee, software engineer, son, brother, friend (if he had any friends) but while he thinks like the next renaissance man, he does nothing but work, and he tells us about every single thing. This incredibly insightful narrator thinks almost in opposition to what his character does. The two operate on entirely different planes except when he's talking about software. There are some lovely moments, but we are not rewarded with much past lovely thoughts that flit by while we deal with yet another sales call or software is to life metaphor or simile.

Sure, we see Henry is a human being despite working at a company that is the equivalent of Dilbert's cubicle. There are better novels that teach us that, if we haven't figured it out on our own.

I didn't buy this man actually wanting to stay in his job or believing the things about his company that we're told he believes. At best it feels like he's settling, has no dreams to break down the wall of BS or break out of his confines. He is overtaken by The Pall, but the man who is portrayed as highly educated, intelligent and savvy becomes useless and worse - boring. The prose is promising, though there are more than a few times where it becomes purplish in color and overly flowery. (And at times it's oppressive - like when he lists nearly every single philosophy school ever.) This only gets two stars because I didn't hate it with a passion, but there was nothing inspiring passion for me in this book.

I needed Henry to live up to his finely tuned thoughts. He narrates a book where his character doesn't match his own brain.

[Alexandra D. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Merci à Netgalley et aux éditions Belfond pour cette lecture. Dans l'Aventuriste, on plonge dans un monde à la fois connu et mystérieux . Celui de l'entreprise !!!

Henry est un commercial typique qui ne souhaite que remporter des contrats et vendre les logiciels qu'il a crée.

Mais quand les requins s'ont de sortie et, que son histoire familiale se complique, Henry s'interroge.

On sent dans ce roman, la connaissance de l'entreprise qui anime l'auteur. Celui-ci , inspirateur, d'Henry, livre pour son premier roman, un récit sociétal intense. Il nous montre l'envers du décor de cette entreprise inhumaine, qui broie du salarié avec pour seul but, le profit. Ce milieu professionnel qui prend toute la place, au détriment de la vie privée , qui empêche la vie de famille, qui isole. Un tourbillon qui emporte tout sur son passage.

Les personnages nous rappellent certains collègues, il y a ceux que l'on apprécie, ceux que l'on envie et ceux qui font de la peine ...

Ce récit pointu ,certainement un peu vécu par tous, entraîne le lecteur à s'interroger sur la place du travail dans sa vie, ses conséquences et son omniprésence. Alors ferez-vous le même choix qu'Henry ?

[Lisa Carroll · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was very enjoyable as a look into the life of a corporate executive. One of the main themes to take out of this book is where should an individual draw that line between work and personal. How much are we truly willing to give up for that almighty dollar and the power that comes with it. This is a story of the struggles of an individual who hasn't truly mourned the death of his mother, who lives to work and struggles with the personal life that leaves him and a man who is very sexually attracted to a another female executive who happens to be married. This later part is where the story actually gets pretty comical. If I could give it a 3.5 or 3.75 rating on Goodreads I would, but this site only allows whole numbers between 1 and 5.

[Tina · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was slow at first in the beginning i kinda fell asleep reading the first few chapters didnt find any interests of the book had to push myself to at least give the book a try. I was.literally had a hard time reading the first chapters read it like three.times idk most if the books i dont find being picky i woukd read anything but this book some how made me past out.. im so sorry but its my honest opinion for this book! Im sure there are many people definitely like this book but this isnt for me.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a lot of Walker Percy here, and the more Percy you've read the more there is. But that's not so bad, there's a lot of Percy in me, too, and I enjoyed this all the way through. Very companionable narrator who is as capable of treating familiar subjects in a new way as his deep fear of the commonplace would require.

Me personally, though, I find the PTAC air conditioner at a hotel much more reassuring than otherwise. Let that thing get the temperature down to 60 and enjoy the skillful bedmaking of a team of professional housekeepers.

[Kelly · Rating 1 out of 5]

I found this book, and saw mostly 5 stars on Amazon, so I figured why not give it a try. I didn’t even make it through the first chapter. I had no desire to continue reading, there was no urge to want to pick it up and read when I wasn’t able to read it. The chapters are so long, which I think makes it harder to continue reading. The story line was confusing to me and never put the book really understanding what just happened where I left off. I officially gave up, I’ll pass the book along so I don’t pick it up again. This book may be for some but it’s not for me.

[Jeri · Rating 2 out of 5]

A story of a man in mid-life crisis, working in a dull office park of a modern software company, who loses his mother, his sense of being and wants to escape from it all.
Liked or Disliked, Because: There is some merit in his relationships with his sister, who has stayed at home with their father; his co-worker, who is saddled with "strings" and a potential new girlfriend -- but something is lacking, at least for me.

[Aaron Mc morris · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is not an aggressive page turner.

The MC is constantly pulled between love interests, work and family, all the while those lines are constantly crossing. Yet the character reads less and less empathetic. by the end of the book I was more glad to have finished the book than the characters seemingly lack of an arc, or growth. The Adventurist here seems to be a misnomer by the sheer lack of driving force behind what is presented.

[Brad · Rating 2 out of 5]

Recommendation by Mike Pesca of The Gist falls flat. First novel is clearly that -- from an alleged former programmer. Per The Gist, I admired the ambition (unrealized here) to make meaning from modern middle management tech jobs. Romanticizing a not-quite fulfilled fling with a married co-worker doesn't earn any sympathy here.

[Stephanie Marks · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this book to be very mediocre. Based on the plot premise, I had high hopes for a good story about relationships. However, I found this book really dry and flat, and the characters were pretty one-dimensional and none of them were likeable. The only thing I really enjoyed was the cover. I wouldn’t recommend it.

[Aaron Hillegass · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the story of a computer programmer who works for a smallish tech company in Atlanta. It is beautifully written and very thoughtful. It is also sad. His mother has died, his father is sinking into dementia, he has a small and sad romantic life, and his job is realistically yucky.