We Can Save Us All

by Adam Nemett

Overview

One of ALA Booklist's Top Ten Debut Novels of 2018
"Nemett's wondrously fresh novel positively bursts with charm, heart, and invention." —Booklist, Starred Review

Welcome to The Egg, an off-campus geodesic dome where David Fuffman and his crew of alienated Princeton students train for what might be the end of days: America is in a perpetual state of war, climate disasters create a global state of emergency, and scientists believe time itself may be collapsing.


Funded by the charismatic Mathias Blue and fueled by performance enhancers and psychedelic drugs, a student revolution incubates at The Egg, inspired by the superheroes that dominate American culture. The arrival of Haley Roth—an impassioned heroine with a dark secret—propels David and Mathias to expand their movement across college campuses nationwide, inspiring a cult-like following. As the final superstorm arrives, they toe the line between good and evil, deliverance and demagogues, the damned and the saved.


In this sprawling, ambitious debut, Adam Nemett delves into contemporary life in all of its chaos and unknowing. We Can Save Us All is a brave, ribald, and multi-layered examination of what may be the fundamental question of our time: just who is responsible for fixing all of this?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781944700768
Publisher:	The Unnamed Press
Publication date:	11/13/2018
Sales rank:	1,265,897
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

ADAM NEMETT has written award-winning business history books and directed campaigns for Lockheed Martin, Brooks Brothers, City of Hope, Huntington Bank, Adobe, HarperCollins, 21st Century Fox and Pfizer, among others. WE CAN SAVE US ALL is his first novel. Adam is the creative lead at The History Factory, the writer/director of the independent feature film, The Instrument, and co-founder of the educational nonprofit, MIMA Music. He graduated from Princeton University, received his MFA from California College of the Arts, and now lives in Charlottesville, Virginia. Find him at www.AdamNemett.com

Editorial Reviews

Nemett's book swerves between speculative coming-of-age fiction, a superhero story and an apocalyptic campus novel…[I] found the sincerities of both Nemett and his characters refreshing in their vulnerability…Nemett captures a group whose unfettered exuberance is seldom found in today's novels.

The New York Times Book Review - Antonia Hitchens

09/03/2018
In Nemett’s imaginative debut, a group of troubled Princeton students gather off campus in the near future at the Egg, an off-campus research building named for its domelike shape. Thoreau-quoting and insecure in his masculinity, the wimpy David Fuffman is the most recent addition to the Egg, and he joins a handful of other boys who don’t fit neatly into the Princeton ecosystem. They’re led by Mathias Blue, an enigmatic rich kid who has shaped the Egg into both a safe haven for boys like David and something of a bunker for doomsday, which feels imminent. As blizzards, trade wars, and actual warfare ravage the world, the residents of the Egg adopt superhero personas in an attempt to do good (while on performance-enhancing drugs) by creating a 90-day “spectacle” of events meant to combat evil (mostly within themselves). As their collective, called the Unnamed Supersquadron of Vigilantes, grows more ambitious, both in their actions and in their public profile, they’re joined by Haley Roth, David’s high school drug dealer and current crush, with whom he shares an uneasy history. Fiery, funny, and fearless, Haley is the real standout of the novel—especially compared to the mopey David—and readers will wish she’d been given narrative precedence and a less clichéd backstory. Still, Nemett’s refreshing and high-energy novel has the heart and moral tension of a superhero story and the growing pains of a bildungs- roman. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

"Nemett’s recipe for disaster is sound—a dash of Pynchon, a hint of Neal Stephenson, and a nihilistic undertone that belies a semihopeful denouement... a confident, visceral debut that’s worth the ride." —Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

★ 11/01/2018
DEBUT In this first novel, the drug-fueled, phantasmagoric environment of the college elite intersects with the cogent realities of environmental degradation. The book is built around student leader Mathias Blue's hypothesis of an impending time collapse and told from the perspective of David Fuffman, a Princeton student under Mathias's spell. After a drunken Halloween night that ends terribly for David's friend Haley, David faces a moral quandary. One of his solutions is to create the Un-named Supersquadron of Vigilantes (USV), which has a group of Mathias Blue's male housemates, including David, dressing up as invented superheroes. David and Matthias lead the USV in a well-publicized rescue of trapped residents of Pennington, NJ, snowed in by a blizzard. As the USV gains in popularity, it grows to include women, including Haley, but its antics become riskier, and Mathias Blue morphs from merry prankster to cult leader. VERDICT In the end, it's the parents who step in the clean up the mess. This is an unlikely but timely contribution to the ongoing #metoo dialog as well as humorous riposte to concerns about society and the environment. Highly recommended.—Henry Bankhead, San Rafael P.L., CA

Library Journal

2018-09-02

Hey, what if a book was like Fight Club (1996) but instead of fights, everyone takes a heroic dose of drugs and plays superhero?

This ambitious, half-cracked debut about Generation Z students struggling with a bent concept of the future in the midst of a slow apocalypse is an ambitious but acidic take on superhero stories and the price of growing up. Our nice-guy protagonist is David Fuffman, a struggling engineering student at Princeton University in a time of "Chronostrictesis," where time itself seems to be running out as climate change threatens the future of the human species. His life changes dramatically when he meets Mathias Blue, a charismatic, wealthy ne'er-do-well who has set up his lair, "The Egg," as a kind of off-campus, drug-fueled incubator for social change solutions. "At the Egg, you're always working on your project, your vision, your Thesis—something only you can do," says Mathias. David's Achilles' heel is Haley Roth, his punky high school drug dealer, on whom he has a brutal crush. Jacked up on a new stimulant called Zeronal laced with DMT, the residents of the Egg go through something of a psychic epiphany with visions of the future. David's thesis becomes the Unnamed Supersquadron of Vigilantes, a cartoonish attempt at forming a radicalized Justice League, with appropriately disastrous results summed up in a mock Atlantic article, "Dissent in the Age of Flibberflibbergaboobieism." The novel takes a dark turn in its final third, as secrets are revealed, rivalries erupt, and Mathias' dark visions of "The End" fuel a brainwashing from which no one in his orbit remains unscathed. Nemett's recipe for disaster is sound—a dash of Pynchon, a hint of Neal Stephenson, and a nihilistic undertone that belies a semihopeful denouement. While it never quite finds its balance between social satire and youth in rebellion, it's still a confident, visceral debut that's worth the ride.

A timely fable of generational angst armed with that old punk ethos: no future.

Kirkus Reviews

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