(Reviewed by JD Jung)
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An untimely death at a housewarming party takes place just prior to the millennium, and Silicon Valley IT professional Steve Galanos is trying to make sense of it all. Later, he proceeds to recount events of December 1999 that led up to the tragedy.
The ordeal centers around his friendship with co-worker John Goertz, who in 1994, warned their company of a possible calendar programming disaster when the year 2000 hit. John was then assigned to spearhead the Y2K conversion. Though Steve was jealous of him, they eventually became friends.
Many Are Invited follows the events of December 1999 through Steve’s perspective and his friendship with John and others, especially the women in their lives.
There were a lot of characters in the story, and I was confused as some would reappear later in the book. That said, I was completely engrossed in this story as author Dennis Cuesta never let up on the suspense. I kept trying to predict the circumstances of the upcoming death, specifically the “who” and the “why”. That says a lot as I didn’t feel for any of the characters. The men were misogynistic, the women were two-faced and both genders harbored a competitive jealousy and ill-will towards each other.
Cuesta created such a build-up, and I wasn’t letdown by the conclusion. It made sense and was satisfying.
I don’t know if Cuesta was trying to say something about the Silicon Valley work culture, but I kept thinking of the adage “With friends like these, who needs enemies?”
