“Need Blind Ambition is intelligent, heartbreaking, and often sharply funny. It’s a deftly observed, thrilling, I’m-going-to-be-late-but-gotta-finish-this-chapter kind of book.”
— Gary Gulman of HBO’s TheGreat Depresh, author of Misfit: Growing Up Awkward in the '80s.
“Need Blind Ambition offers a spirited tour of the private higher ed landscape. Like many denizens of this world, our protagonist Peter Cook is never quite sure whether he's in a tragedy or a comedy. Myers enrolls the reader in academia with an insider's knowledge and an outsider's indignation at the folly of it all.”
— Jan Mieszkowski is professor of German and comparative literature at Reed College. His most recent book is Crises of the Sentence.
NEED BLIND AMBITION
(Beaufort Books, 2023) The desire for relevance—and to save his marriage—is ultimately what pushed Peter Cook to leave his beloved Alaska for the prestigious Parker College. Lured by the chance to work with his childhood political idol turned college president, Peter moves his family to Portland, Oregon to help promote his hero’s fundraising initiative that would eliminate financial status from the college’s admissions process. Peter arrives on campus as the Great Recession looms, the stock market is trending toward disaster, and the opioid crisis has breached the walls of the privileged college. He quickly learns the reality of Parker College strays far from its professed idealistic mission after discovering a plot to cover-up felonious drug activity in return for a seven-figure payday to the Need Blind Campaign. While plumbing the depths of his conscience for the conviction to do the right thing, Peter’s untreated childhood trauma resurfaces, threatening to cloud his perception when it needs to be at its sharpest. Peter must stabilize his mental health while also trying to parse competing versions of “the truth” as law enforcement investigates the criminal conspiracy.
HIDDEN FALLS
GOLD IPPY AWARD WINNER: BEST NORTHEAST FICTION
(Beaufort Books, 2020) Michael Quinn is not well equipped for his odyssey through New England's dangerous underworld. In fact, he isn't well equipped for much. Michael's only goal was to become an editorial writer at the Portland Daily, a milestone he achieved just as the paper was picking up momentum toward irrelevance. Middle-aged, romantically unattached, distant from his only child, and in search of love through the missed connections classifieds, Michael thinks these are his only problems. Returning to Boston after his father dies unexpectedly, Michael's journey home forces him into conflict with unresolved family issues, denial, and the revelation that his father had ties to organized crime. Michael inherits some unfinished family business that places him as the unwitting linchpin in a major criminal conspiracy. His journey brings danger and betrayal, but also self-discovery and the possibility of a windfall of cash.
