Life Is Pinball

If actuaries are reputedly insurance company dullards who do math, LIFE IS PINBALL's Alroy Shanly might yet be an exception. A recent graduate of Cyprus Polytechnic Institute, Alroy arrives in Galveston, Texas, to work for Atlas Global Insurance. But Alroy knows life is more than math. He moonlights at lifeispinball.com, taking phone calls from people with problems as Roy Who Listens. Alroy's actuarial work matters. He and colleague Duncan develop FirstLife, term insurance for the yet-to-be-born. Predictably, it draws outside protesters and promises to be a runaway success. Alroy comes to know what he can influence, what he cannot. In happenstance, he discovers his Emma, the two of them bicycling down the ten-mile Galveston Seawall sidewalk toward a future at novel's end.