An Outside In Print book
PENDING
A Novel
A government economist who expects words to answer to reality discovers the limits of being right, at work and with the woman he loves.
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About the book
A man who believes words answer to reality joins an office where words answer to the next meeting.
Evan Markham arrives at a public-works agency expecting evidence to guide decisions. Instead, he finds a coastal study advancing faster than its record can support. Questions become coordination items. Objections become matters of tone. A colleague who asks for evidence disappears from the meeting invitations.
Evan starts keeping a better record. His colleagues sometimes correct him, sometimes agree in private, and rarely let agreement cost them anything. Each attempt to make the language accurate draws him further into the machinery he distrusts.
At home, Leah wants a wedding and a life that belongs to them. Evan wants to help. But his habit of turning uncertainty into something documented, clarified, and manageable begins to govern the future they are supposed to share.
PENDING is a short literary novel about useful language, private loyalty, and what happens when telling the truth becomes a way of refusing to wait.
Approximately 39,000 words.
About the author
Robert V. Ussley writes fiction, essays, dialogues, and reported work for Outside In Print. His writing examines institutions under strain, risk, technology, and the consequences of public language.