photograph by greg campbell
Author M.J. Wassmer
“I’ve always agreed with William Faulkner — he said that the human heart in conflict with itself is the only thing worth writing about.”
— George R.R. Martin
Perpetual underachiever Dan Foster is on vacation with his girlfriend, Mara, at the newly opened, all-inclusive (and fictional) Tizoc Grand Islands Resort and Spa when the sun explodes. So begins the wildly entertaining debut novel, Zero Stars, Do Not Recommend (Sourcebooks), by Collierville-based author M.J. Wassmer.
Though the novel’s dark-paradisiacal setting is far from Memphis and the Mid-South, Wassmer’s hometown has helped shape him. He graduated from Collierville High School and studied journalism with a concentration in marketing at the University of Memphis. “I spent my whole life working in Memphis,” he says. “I met my wife in high school at Collierville, so we’re high school sweethearts.”
It just goes to show that great things can begin in (or near) the Bluff City.
Of Lonesome Dove and the Loneliness of Microwave Dinners
Wassmer grew up in a funny family. In a recent interview, he joked often, and often at his own expense. And humor helped a young Wassmer discover the joy of fiction-writing.
“I remember the moment that I knew I wanted to be a writer,” Wassmer says. “It was in middle school. We had a science fair and my project left a lot to be desired. I essentially just microwaved a potato. With these science projects, we had to write eight-page scientific papers, which is a lot for a middle-schooler, but I remember I had more interest in the paper than the project. I kind of goofed off throughout it. I was making jokes about friction and leftovers and the loneliness of microwave dinners.
“On the project I got a C, which is totally fair from a science standpoint, but I remember watching my teacher as she was reading the report and she laughed. There was another teacher nearby, and she read it over my teacher’s shoulder and she laughed.”
The experience left its mark: “I was able to put together some words and evoke an emotion.”
Conjuring that laughter felt like unlocking a new kind of power. Writing, he learned, could be an effective tool. Still, Wassmer admits that he wasn’t really “much of a reader” until he encountered a novel by Larry McMurtry.
“I read Lonesome Dove my freshman year of high school, and that was the book that made me want to be a novelist,” he recalls. “It played like a movie in my head.” Lonesome Dove remains his favorite novel.
Wassmer began thinking about how to turn his passion into a paycheck, so he enrolled in the University of Memphis. After graduation, an internship led to a full-time job, which in turn led to a successful career in marketing. All the while, though, Wassmer nursed a desire to use his penchant for turning a phrase to a different use. He wanted to write a novel, but he was afraid to fail.
“Like Dan [a character] in my book, I spent my twenties cubicle-surfing and I was too lazy or scared to really pursue my dream of writing,” he says. “It’s easy in your twenties to dismiss your dreams; you still feel like you have all the time in the world.”
Zero Stars, Do Not Recommend was Wassmer’s way of working through those feelings. “I thought an end-of-the-world scenario, where you take this underachieving character and he is literally out of time,” he says, “was a decent canvas to explore themes of inherent worth, restlessness, and toxic masculinity.” Those are heavy topics to juggle, but Wassmer proves dexterous as he pushes his characters to embrace empathy, even while tempting them toward an easier (and crueler) path.
Manhood for Amateurs
As the sun winks out of existence in the skies over the Tizoc Grand Islands Resort and Spa, the guests face a sudden leadership vacuum, an increasingly dangerous survival situation, and the very real possibility that they are completely on their own. The sudden disappearance of the sun (along with solar flares, electromagnetic pulses, or other space-and-science stuff beyond this book reviewer’s basic understanding) might have a negative effect on orbiting satellites and yes, cell phone signals.
Within this setting, Wassmer deftly maneuvers his characters into a situation built to bring out the best — or worst — in them. Tensions on the island rise as temperatures drop, and time is running out. When faced with this catastrophe, who will Dan decide to be?
“There was totally a scenario, a very likely scenario, where the book never went anywhere, where it was never published. I got lucky. The book is good. There’s some baseline stuff you have to do to enable yourself to get lucky, but I also know a lot of writers just as good or better than me who will never get this opportunity.” — M.J. Wassmer
“Dan is kind of obsessed with this idea of what it means to be a man,” Wassmer says. He explains that Dan exists in a state of arrested development, but he knows he has time to grow — or he would have if the sun hadn’t sizzled out. Of course, as Dan ponders what “kind of man” he wants to be, he’s missing the point. Life is about what kind of person you are. “I wanted, on the island, for him to come across different forms of toxic masculinity,” the author says, and in this, as in so many other arenas, he has succeeded.
As food is hoarded and temperatures fall, the divides on the island begin to widen. One character seems to be a generally good guy, but is nonetheless willing to let the island and everyone on it burn to save his own skin. Another man is resourceful but prideful. And of course, there’s the standard-issue Macho Man character. To put it mildly, even this character’s worse, most selfish impulses, are, unfortunately, quite believable.
So, confronted with these examples, who will Dan choose to be? Another question: When everything is on the line, what value do the careers and cars and other social markers that drive us mean? At one point Dan, despairing, says, “I’m going to die a Marvel Maids marketing specialist.”
Wassmer seems to be asking if that’s such a bad thing.
“There was totally a scenario, a very likely scenario, where the book never went anywhere, where it was never published,” Wassmer says. “I got lucky. The book is good. There’s some baseline stuff you have to do to enable yourself to get lucky, but I also know a lot of writers just as good or better than me who will never get this opportunity.” Part of his goal in writing Zero Stars was, seemingly paradoxically, to work through his feelings about what it meant about himself if Zero Stars were never published.
Don’t Let the Sun Set on Your Dreams
The personal stakes are high in Zero Stars, but so too are the societal repercussions. What does it mean to defend yourself — does that obligation start and end with you? With your family?
Wassmer deftly explores class dynamics in the novel. The resort is built on a strict hierarchy of leisure, based around a three-tiered pay scale for the guests. There are three buildings on-site, and the guests are divided by which building they call home-away-from-home.
“While Building A has a view of the ocean, Building B has a view of the gardens. And Building C has a view of the parking lot,” Wassmer explains. When cataclysm strikes, the guests of the resort must overcome their prejudices to work together.
Wassmer wrote most of the novel during the early Covid pandemic, and he says the apocalyptic atmosphere and the stark differences in dangers and comforts available to people in different careers and income brackets were strong influences on his work.
“Obviously inequalities exist every day, but Covid really brought them front and center,” he remembers. While he answered emails from his couch, other people were forced to risk their lives just to earn a paycheck. It was impossible not to see, and be moved by, the uneven access to healthcare, stark decline in employment opportunities, and other challenges faced by so-called essential workers.
“One of the questions I wanted to explore in this book is, ‘Who really benefits when the world ends?’” Wassmer explains. The denizens of Building A certainly seem to profit, at least at first. In fact, some of the humor in the novel derives from the absurdity that Lillyanna Collins, of BeachBod by Lillyanna fame, emerges as one of the island’s leaders. Lillyanna’s name recognition and perceived aura of success lend her credibility, though other people on the island have more practice working in a crisis. Of course, anyone who remembers the first six months of 2020 will find the novel’s absurdity to be an indicator of its honesty.
Wassmer’s debut novel is heartfelt, hopeful, and laugh-out-loud funny. The author nimbly sidesteps the common first novel mistakes. The characters feel authentic and have their own voices, and Wassmer never strays into sermonizing. He has turned in a compelling book that is both entertaining and meaningful. As such, Zero Stars, Do Not Recommend’s clever title is more than a bit of a misnomer. This novel deserves four stars and every recommendation.
