The Readymade Thief: A Novel

by Augustus Rose

Overview

“The most must-read of all must-reads.” —Marie Claire

“A kickass debut from start to finish.” —Colson Whitehead, author of The Underground Railroad

Lee Cuddy is seventeen years old and on the run.
 
Betrayed by her family after taking the fall for a friend, Lee finds refuge in a cooperative of runaways holed up in an abandoned building they call the Crystal Castle. But the façade of the Castle conceals a far more sinister agenda, one hatched by a society of fanatical men set on decoding a series of powerful secrets hidden in plain sight. And they believe Lee holds the key to it all.
 
Aided by Tomi, a young hacker and artist with whom she has struck a wary alliance, Lee escapes into the unmapped corners of the city—empty aquariums, deserted motels, patrolled museums, and even the homes of vacationing families. But the deeper she goes underground, the more tightly she finds herself bound in the strange web she’s trying to elude. Desperate and out of options, Lee steps from the shadows to face who is after her—and why.
 
A novel of puzzles, conspiracies, secret societies, urban exploration, art history, and a singular, indomitable heroine, The Readymade Thief heralds the arrival of a spellbinding and original new talent in fiction.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780735221840
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/07/2018
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	760,922
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Augustus Rose is a novelist and screenwriter. He was born in the northern California coastal town of Bolinas, and grew up there and in San Francisco. He lives in Chicago with his wife, the novelist Nami Mun and their son, and he teaches fiction writing at the University of Chicago.

Read an Excerpt

PROLOGUE
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "The Readymade Thief"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Augustus Rose.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Reading Group Guide

1. Why do you think Lee steals? What is the “itch” that stealing scratches in her?

2. Do you think Edie was always using Lee, or was there genuine friendship there? What do you make of the bird metaphor Edie uses when describing why she chose to befriend Lee?

3. Lee is a quiet character, but is she passive?

4. The Station Master asks Lee about whether she understands the nature of desire. He says that she knows “what it is to want, perhaps even to yearn, but true desire is something else entirely.” What do you think differentiates desire from yearning? Is there something that Lee desires?

5. Tomi argues that paintings have aura because they are “one of a kind,” and that “to go and see a painting is a kind of pilgrimage, a ritual.” He also says that “aura is not in the thing but in the relationship between the viewer and the thing.” Do you agree with Tomi?

6. Do you think the Undertaker would have killed Tomi if he hadn’t drawn first? If Lee had returned With Hidden Noise, would the Société Anonyme have stopped pursuing her?

7. Of all the places to go, why do you think Lee chooses to return to Annie’s home when she is on the verge of death?

8. Do you think Lee’s mother knew that Steve was contacting the S.A. when Lee returned home to steal the car? Edie actively betrays Lee, whereas Lee’s mother betrays her perhaps through inaction. Which is worse? Are they both equally culpable?

9. Do you believe the Priest when he says that the S.A. was created with noble intentions? At what point did the S.A.’s obsession transform from benign to malevolent? And if the Priest’s theory about Marcel Duchamp’s work had proved correct, would the ends have justified the means?

10. Why do you think Lee chooses to keep her child?

11. Near the end of the novel, Lee returns to the abandoned aquarium to find Tomi’s body has disappeared. What do you think happened?

12. In the final scene, Lee finds in the Undertaker’s safe a single, small portrait of a young woman mixed in with a stack of stolen paintings. It is “the kind of work, Lee knew, that Duchamp would have dismissed as retinal.” Why do you think she takes it? Why this particular painting?

13. In the epigraph the author quotes Marcel Duchamp: “There is no solution, because there is no problem.” What do you make of this quote, after finishing the book?

Editorial Reviews

Finalist for the 2017 Chicago Review of Books Award

“Anyone who became addicted to the rolling emotions, betrayals, and violent showdowns of Breaking Bad will be seduced by Augustus Rose’s debut . . . Fiendishly intricate and relentlessly suspenseful.”
—O, The Oprah Magazine

“A fast-paced adventure . . . as cleverly written as it is illuminating and deeply referential, and once you start we dare you to try to put it down.”
—Harper’s Bazaar

“This is one of those rare books that you can recommend to anyone you know, even that person who ‘doesn’t read.’ The most must-read of all must-reads.”
—Marie Claire

“[An] uncanny, near sublime first novel. . . . A delight.”
—BBC

“First novels as rich and enchanting as Augustus Rose’s The Readymade Thief don’t come around too often, and when they do, they rarely combine secret societies, teenage runaways, and Marcel Duchamp.”
—Vanity Fair

“[A] viscerally and intellectually exciting novel . . . whose punning title indicates the layered complexity of this well-written text.”
—Wall Street Journal

“[A] coolly creepy debut.”
—People

“[A] strange and wonderful debut . . . wildly unpredictable, big-hearted, and always fascinating.”
—The Seattle Times
 
“A fast-paced, plot-driven novel with a resolute heroine and a lot of history . . . Readers who enjoy literary puzzles, or who are looking for something a little different, should look no farther than The Readymade Thief.”
—Shelf Awareness

“Complex, twisty and full of suspense.”
—Daily Mail

“Rewarding, like unearthing the Easter eggs in a Lynchian masterpiece.”
—Murder & Mayhem

“In his highly addictive and multi-faceted first novel, Augustus Rose pits an irrepressible and gritty young heroine against a sinister group of fanatics. The Readymade Thief is a kickass debut from start to finish.”
—Colson Whitehead, author of The Underground Railroad

“The Readymade Thief is my favorite kind of book: an improbable one. The novel is a map of things—urban exploration, secret societies, the city of Philadelphia, Marcel Duchamp, very possibly the Home Alone movies—and if those things don’t seem to fit together, well, that’s the magic of the improbable book, and the transmutation of obsessions, by energy and intellect, into something wholly new: a novel that’s unexpected, uncategorizable, unputdownable.”
—Robin Sloan, author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore

“The Readymade Thief is a brilliant, suspenseful, and cinematic novel with an unforgettable heroine and a big story about art, the nature of consciousness, and all points in between. Be prepared to lose yourself in it.”
—Edan Lepucki, author of California and Woman No. 17

“I fell more than a little bit in love not just with Lee—the gutsy protagonist of Augustus Rose’s gorgeous debut novel, The Readymade Thief—but with the book itself. It’s a hypnotizing amalgamation of love story and mystery. I am in awe.”
—Hannah Pittard, author of Listen to Me

“In The Readymade Thief, Augustus Rose shows that he has one of the steadiest hands in fiction. How else to explain how effortlessly he complicates and expands the mystery at the heart of the novel, adding Marcel Duchamp, the Darknet, Urban Exploration, and a unified field theory along the way to such amazing effect. Each time I thought I had found my way to solid ground, another level opened up, and I eagerly tunneled deeper. Rose has crafted something memorable, crackling with energy, a truly wonderful tale.”
—Kevin Wilson, author of The Family Fang
 
“A rewarding novel full of pleasures and surprises. Every time I thought I knew where the story was going, it took me somewhere stranger and deeper than I could have imagined. A rich, heady mix of ideas and thrills.”
—Charles Yu, author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe

“Complex on many intellectual levels, drawing heavily on theories of art history and physics, and the mystery is deep and satisfying in both its unpredictability and its culmination. The sheer scope is impressive, as are Rose's evocative descriptions of underground and abandoned places, reminiscent of David Lynch's films.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“A richly detailed intellectual thriller . . . Lee is an excellent character, and the many shadowy settings she travels through make for a fascinating vision of an alternate, underground Philadelphia.”
—Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher