The Supply Chain

Aaron Schneider's new novel The Supply Chain is both masterful in its use of form and style, and a fearless literary foray into the banality of evil. For decades, companies have used London, Ontario, to test market their products because it is a quintessentially average North American city, and Matt Nowak is as average as the city in which he lives: He watches hockey on Saturday nights and football on Sundays. He has a job that he doesn't like but that he was lucky to get. He has a house in a suburb that he can only barely afford, and a newborn son who he struggles to love because he was himself raised by cold and distant parents. But one part of Matt's life is far from average: the company he works for manufactures the armored vehicles that Saudi Arabia is using in the war in Yemen, and that conflict, whose chief victims are children no different than his son, forms the backdrop to everything Matt does. The Supply Chain weaves a father's emotional journey, poems, and found texts into an urgent and lyrical exploration of love, complicity, and the far-reaching consequences of average lives.