Many Are Invited - by Dennis Cuesta (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

A housewarming party ends in tragedy. . . Steve Galanos, a native Midwesterner, reflects on his time in Northern California during the 1990s, a time when the two-digit year emerged as the Y2K problem, the burgeoning Internet fueled the expansion of the New Economy, the dot-com bubble created unseen prosperity and real estate frenzies. Yet it's a housewarming party, held in late 1999, that affects him the most.

At the request of John Goertz, a group of technology managers and executives gather in a conference room. Listening to the presentation is Steve Galanos, who is suspicious of Goertz's approach and the dramatic way he describes the problem. Goertz tries to convince his audience that a disaster awaits them unless they immediately address the two-digit year in the company's distributed systems and compiled code. It's 1994, well before anyone has heard of the term, Y2K.

A promotion to run the newly-created year 2000 compliance program earns John more skepticism and envy from Steve, yet the two have much in common and soon become good friends. A few years later, John leaves for a startup and their lives trend in different directions.

By the time John cashes out from a successful IPO, gets married, and buys a house in Los Gatos, his friendship with Steve has waned. It's at John's housewarming party where latent animosity and lingering distrust finally come to a head.

Review Quotes

"Cuesta limns a devilishly complex psychology of envy, which plumbs the peculiar relationship between love and loathing...[T]he ending is as unpredictable as it is thrilling, and the novel as a whole is a keen peek into a hollow culture."― Kirkus

"Part confession and part expiation of a man's mental burdens, Many Are Invited is a fascinating psychological novel about the disastrous consequences of meddling in the lives of others." ― Foreword Clarion Reviews

"Cuesta's characters are richly drawn, with subtle edginess and uncertainty that colors their interactions and builds to an explosive night." ― Booklife