Playing Nice Was Getting Me Nowhere by Alex Cothren

Alex Cothren’s debut short story collection Playing Nice Was Getting Me Nowhere is a ferocious and darkly funny indictment of modern society. With each story, Cothren pushes the boundaries of plausibility, yet his unsettling imagination never strays too far from contemporary reality. A satirical, slipstream tour-de-force, this book lands somewhere between dystopian prophecy and absurdist farce. For readers weary of the doom-laden headlines of today, Cothren offers not so much relief as recognition, and just enough comic energy to make the madness endurable.

The collection is not content to merely comment on the times. It holds up a cracked mirror to the anxieties that keep many of us awake at night. From a nation torn apart by a conspiracy theory about bees, to a pokie machine possessed with vengeful intent, to the chilling intelligence of a ‘smart’ home gone rogue, the stories read like dispatches from a future that feels all too near. Each narrative is meticulously crafted, laced with biting humour and a creeping sense of unease. There is an almost surreal brilliance to how the familiar is twisted: technology, media, politics, and environmental collapse are explored through lenses both warped and painfully clear.

Cothren’s tone is deadpan, his prose precise, and his satire scalpel-sharp. Comparisons to Black Mirror are inevitable, yet Cothren’s work feels less like a screen adaptation and more like a deeply literary, subversive engagement with ethical disintegration. Like George Saunders, to whom he is often compared, Cothren manages to extract heartbreak from the ridiculous and moments of empathy from the grotesque. As Wayne Marshall has noted, despite the chaos, there are flashes of genuine heart, and even (occasionally) hope.

What elevates the collection beyond mere commentary is its thematic cohesion and formal daring. Cothren is unafraid to experiment with narrative structure and voice, yet each story maintains clarity and resonance. He skewers the absurdities of late capitalism, environmental neglect, and political incompetence without losing sight of the individuals caught in the whirlwind. The protagonists are often ordinary people, sometimes hapless, sometimes complicit, always compelling. In one sense, they are victims of systems far beyond their control; in another, they are mirror reflections of our own choices and compromises.

Playing Nice Was Getting Me Nowhere is a book that demands to be read now, not because it offers easy answers or moral certainty, but because it captures the confusion, dark comedy, and fractured hope of our time. Cothren, a multi-award-winning short story writer and creative writing lecturer, has delivered a debut that is intellectually fierce and emotionally resonant. This is a rare collection: timely without being didactic, experimental without being obscure, and devastatingly funny without losing sight of the real human cost beneath the satire.

For anyone who feels like the world has become a fever dream, Cothren’s stories may not offer solace, but they will certainly offer a sense of company in the madness.

Reviewer: Chris Reed

Pink Shorts Press