#danchaon

One of Us: A Novel by Dan Chaon

pub date - 9/23/25

Wonderfully written, deeply unsettling in parts, and full of unforgettable characters, One of Us pulled me in immediately and kept my attention on tenterhooks throughout.

This was my first time reading the author; it definitely won’t be the last.

A definite recommendation!

Thank you to Henry Holt and Co. and NetGalley for the DRC

Sleepwalk is a high speed and darkly comic road trip through a near future America with a big-hearted mercenary, from beloved and acclaimed award-winning novelist Dan Chaon.

“[Chaon] does madcap well and likes his characters, even the killers―especially the killers.”―The New York Times Book Review

A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice An NPR “Book of the Day” A USA Today “Must Read”

hero, Will Bear, is a man with so many aliases that he simply thinks of himself as the Barely Blur. At fifty years old, he’s been living off the grid for over half his life. He’s never had a real job, never paid taxes, never been in a committed relationship. A good-natured henchman with a complicated and lonely past and a passion for LSD microdosing, he spends his time hopscotching across state lines in his beloved camper van, running sometimes shady often dangerous errands for a powerful and ruthless operation he’s never troubled himself to learn too much about. He has lots of connections, but no true ties. His longest relationships are with an old rescue dog that has post-traumatic stress and a childhood friend as deeply entrenched in the underworld as he is, who, lately, he’s less and less sure he can trust.

Out of the blue, one of Will’s many burner phones heralds a call from a twenty-year-old woman claiming to be his biological daughter. She says she’s the product of one of his long-ago sperm donations; he’s half certain she’s AI. She needs his help. She’s entrenched in a widespread and nefarious plot involving Will’s employers, and for Will to continue to have any contact with her increasingly fuzzes the line between the people he is working for and the people he’s running from.

With his signature blend of haunting emotional realism and fast-paced intrigue, Dan Chaon populates his fractured America with characters who ring all too true. Gazing both back to the past and forward to an inevitable-enough-seeming future, examines where we’ve been and where we’re going and the connections that bind us, no matter how far we travel to dodge them or how cleverly we hide.

QUOTE OF THE DAY Sunday, August 14, 2022

"Here is the door of my mom's house, well-remembered childhood portal. Here is the yard, and a set of wires that runs from the house to a wooden pole, and some fat birds sitting together on the wires, five of them lined up like beads on an abacus." - Dan Chaon, Stay Awake

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Imagine you created a product, built a business or lead a project that you poured 100% of your potential into. Imagine you harvested every scrap of your potential, then found some you didn’t even know you had. Imagine pouring all of that into your work.Then, you birth your thing into the world. You put it out there for the market to judge.Imagine the market rejects the work that you poured everything into. Imagine your peers just “um” and “ah”. Or maybe offer you some “constructive criticism”. Imagine your mentor says “Consider this one a learning experience – next time will be better!”

Normally, you tell yourself, you’d be fine with those responses. For any project but this one – this was THE ONE!

Imagine, essentially, that you serve up a platter of everything you’re capable of… and it isn’t enough.

Are you terrified yet?

This may be the first time you’ve considered this possibility consciously. Your unconscious mind has been well aware of it though. For some time. In fact, every time you’ve set out to give something your “all”, your unconscious mind has deliberately held you back. Even without you knowing.

Giving your thing just 90% (or even 95%) is a fantastic form of psychological protection. It insulates you perfectly from the risk of failure destroying you. It separates your identity from the possible failure of your work.

If your project fails, you can always tell yourself: “I only gave this 90% – if I had tried a little harder, it might have been a success.”

This is a lie, but a convenient one. The 90% part might be true, but the rest is a guess – an assumption that cushions your ego from bruising.

My experience working with entrepreneurs (those with a track record of pumping out extraordinary work) taught me this:

The serially successful have made peace with shipping at 90% potential. They don’t try to put 100% of their potential (and soul!) into their work – they save some energy for building the tough skin and stamina required to keep working on newer, better stuff. They cultivate the power to keep going, regardless of how the last venture performed.

It’s only the wannapreneurs who talk about committing to their passion and contributing all their potential. People who have never finished anything find it easy to talk about giving everything they’ve got. They’ve never had the experience of their “all” not being enough. The good news for them? They probably will never have to!

The words of irish comedian Dylan Moran have always had an impact on me:

“Your potential is a lot like your bank balance – you never really want to know exactly how much is there…. You never want to know that, if you harvested every scrap of your potential, the most you’d ever achieve is maybe eating less cheesy snacks…”

Street smart entrepreneurs settle for working at 90% capacity. They know that one failed “100% project” will utterly destroy them. They know it’s not a risk worth taking. They know it’s impossible to be prolific when you exhaust 100% of your potential on a project.

Are there entrepreneurs that do it? Yes. The world is full of examples of people who have martyred themselves to their cause (or business). Sometimes, these kinds of projects actually kill people. It usually happens somewhere between giving 99% and 100%.

Ask any successful business person, artist or revolutionary: Could you have done better on the last thing you “finished”? We all know what the answer (always) is.Become a street smart entrepreneur. Get used to pumping out work at 90% of your potential. Use the psychological cushion when you fail – don’t take it personally.This sounds totally counter-intuitive. In fact, it almost appears wrong even as I write it: If you surrender to your unconscious mind holding back a small chunk of your potential on every project, you’re far more likely to be successful.The logic is simple. If the only way you can succeed is to harvest every scrap of your potential, divert all your energy from everywhere else (your health, your family) and sacrifice it on the alter of your “thing”… then that thing isn’t worth doing. I doubt if it’s even possible.Instead, imagine committing only the vast majority of your potential to project after game-changing project. Imagine the collective impact over your lifetime. Imagine stretching and strengthening your potential – baking a bigger cake rather than taking a bigger slice.

This post has one point: The next time you beat yourself up for “not giving it your all”, stop. Relax. Be thankful that your intuitive, unconscious self knows exactly how much to hold back.