Wince - Paperback

Winston Fisher, Jr. is broke, unemployed, and coming off his third divorce. High on cocaine, he wanders through his rented McMansion in a bathrobe, taking little notice of the piles of takeout containers or unopened mail, or even his firearms scattered throughout-a collection vast enough to be called an arsenal. His mother calls constantly. His newly engaged daughter texts updates about the wedding. They still think of him as the man he once was. The only people who know better are his coke dealer and his closest friend, an escort.

What begins as a side hustle-tweaking AR-15s in his garage-becomes something more lucrative, more dangerous, and yet somehow more boring than Winston imagined. The tedium breaks when he stumbles upon a cartel-run stash house hidden in a south Texas junkyard. Fantasizing about robbing it, he begins to wonder if he's desperate enough to follow through.

Part character study, part slow-motion implosion, Drew Nellins Smith's Wince is an unsettling satire about American masculinity, depression, gun culture, and what happens when rock-bottom is mistaken for a return to stability.