The Pursuit of Other Interests by Jim Kokoris

Charlie Baker is a CEO at a Chicago ad agency when he's fired out of the blue. Over the years, he's given more and more time to his work neglecting his wife, Donna, and teenage son, Kyle. After being let go, he finds he can't even tell Donna about his job loss and realizes he's missed years of Kyle growing up. What ensues is Charlie's attempt, sometimes lightheartedly misguided, to get his family back. He also interacts with other unemployed executives at Rogers and Challenger, an outplacement firm, along with the man helping in his job search, Ned Meyers. In his third novel, Kokoris has created another humorous emotionally clueless main character very similar to the father in The Rich Part of Life. After the misstep of his second novel, Sister North, it great to see Kokoris shine again.