Amnesia Moon

by Jonathan Lethem

Overview

A funny, inventive, and wholly original post-apocalyptic novel from the author of Motherless Brooklyn and The Arrest

Meet Chaos, a young man who's living in a movie theater in post-apocalyptic Wyoming, drinking alcohol, and eating food out of cans.

It's an unusual and at times unbearable existence, but Chaos soon discovers that his post-nuclear reality may have no connection to the truth. So he takes to the road with a girl named Melinda in order to find answers. As the pair travels through the United States they find that, while each town has been affected differently by the mysterious source of the apocalypse, none of the people they meet can fill in their incomplete memories or answer their questions. Gradually, figures from Chaos's past, including some who appear only under the influence of intravenously administered drugs, make Chaos remember some of his forgotten life as a man named Moon.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780547536927
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	03/11/2014
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	352 KB

About the Author

Jonathan Lethem is the bestselling author of twelve novels, including The Arrest, The Feral Detective, The Fortress of Solitude, and Motherless Brooklyn, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. He currently teaches creative writing at Pomona College in California.

Hometown:

New York, New York

Place of Birth:

New York, New York

Education:

Left Bennington College after two years

Editorial Reviews

Lethem's post-apocalyptic vision reflects American culture as if in a funhouse mirror in this strong follow-up to Gun, with Occasional Music. Televangelists have become actual robots, dog food is the cuisine of choice and the soap operas star government figures-all making for a confusing world for Everett, aka Chaos, who lives in a movie-projection room in Wyoming, drinking a liquor ``that amounted to rubbing alcohol.'' Fleeing his projection booth with Melinda, who's ``covered with fine, silky hair from head to foot,'' Chaos discovers that he is a ``dreamer,'' one whose dreams can remake reality. As Chaos and Melinda travel through the U.S., they find that, while each town has been affected differently by the mysterious source of the apocalypse, none can fill in their incomplete memories or answer their questions. Alighting in Vacaville, where everything is determined by ``luck tests,'' Chaos and Melinda settle into family life with a woman and her two children. But figures from his past, including some who appear only under the influence of intravenously administered drugs, draw Chaos into discovering that past-and into making more active use of his dream powers. The author draws each stop on Chaos's journey with care, including a supremely decadent San Francisco and a Los Angeles overrun with aliens, bringing to life all the horror and confusion inherent in his future world. At its heart, this novel remains a simple story-the search for identity, the search for family-but Lethem uses it successfully as a springboard for both a commentary on American culture and a convincing portrait of his main character. Author tour. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

A young man named Chaos sets out on a journey across a shattered America to search for the truth that lies behind his fragmented dreams. From Hatfork, Wyoming, a desert town populated by genetic mutants, to the Strip, where perpetual fast food establishments exist in a cultural vacuum, Chaos begins to piece together a history of the breakdown of reality. The author of Gun, with Occasional Music (LJ 2/15/94) embues his second novel with a breathtaking vision of a world in flux. Lethem's prose is as flexible and memorable as the evocative story he tells. Most libraries will want this foray into speculative fiction for their sf collections.

Library Journal

Lethem follows his critically acclaimed crime novel pastiche, "Gun with Occasional Music" (1994), with a strikingly different vision of a postapocalyptic U.S. Chaos is an introverted occupant of a run-down movie theater in Hatfork, Wyoming, who is surrounded by mutant locals and living on canned food until he suspects that the local tyrant, Kellogg, has lied about the bombs that have supposedly destroyed the rest of the country. After stealing Kellogg's car and taking to the highway with a fur-covered runaway girl, Chaos discovers that each new town he comes to is afflicted with its own form of insanity, manifested by mass symptoms ranging from an imaginary, blinding green mist to an obsession with luck. Returning to his native San Francisco, Chaos suddenly remembers his previous identity as a man named Moon and discovers the power his own dreams can have to cure the madness around him. In a remarkable display of versatility, Lethem tempers a liberal dose of quirky surrealism with interesting, believable characterizations and a compelling, imaginative story line.

Carl Hays

"A hip, updated conflation of Harlan Ellison's A Boy and His Dog and Jim Thompson's The Alcoholics. Jonathan Lethem escorts us down an impossibly post-terminal Route 66, kicking and screaming and loving every minute of it." — Barry Gifford, author of Wild at Heart

"An author to be reckoned with . . . A social critic, a sardonic satirist like the Walker Percy of Love in the Ruins. But with Amnesia Moon, Lethem slips out of the shadow of his predecessors to deliver a droll, downbeat vision that is both original and persuasive." — Newsweek

From the Publisher

Chaos has survived an apocalypse and now spends his days eating canned food in an abandoned movie theater. But isn't there more out there? Did the atom bomb destroy hope along with civilization? This compelling science fiction adventure is a true romp from start to finish, and narrator Scott Sowers takes full advantage of his new playground. Sowers's gritty tone is perfectly suited to this tale of Armageddon and has a certain weight and wisdom. Sowers's characters are over the top, particularly the messianic Kellogg. Luckily, they fit the story and seem at home in the otherworldly universe Lethem has skillfully crafted. An enjoyable listen that offers plenty of bang for the buck. L.B. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine

SEPTEMBER 2012 - AudioFile