A clever extrapolation of today’s sociopolitical pathologies to the next century, with an uncommonly optimistic dose of...
In a future socialist America, Houstonians face the vicissitudes of life as a rising political/religious movement predicts the imminent return of a vanished scientist as a medical messiah.
Johnston labels his debut dystopian novel as “science fiction laced with political satire.” But in his deadpan tale, the biggest gag many readers will note is the author cheekily including himself in a future archives as one of sci-fi’s “old masters.” Otherwise, disillusionment with government and mistrust of the Establishment could come straight from today’s headlines and bloggers. America in 2135 is an economically troubled, socialist nanny state, intrusive, abusive, paranoid, and incompetent—whether it’s Democrats or Republicans operating “NatGov.” Some 50 years earlier, an enigmatic Mexican-born genius, Dar Lumbre, threatened the status quo of nationalized health care with his politics, sparking a warrant for his arrest. But he disappeared during the chaos after a providential solar flare erased the surveillance state’s digital records. Disciples since have prophesied Lumbre’s messianic return, bringing freedom and a formula for eternal life (thanks to Johnston’s med-tech savvy, the Jesus parallels are more intriguing than contrived and labored). In Houston, geneticists Crane Hopkins and Annie Lee study Lumbre’s own heirloom tissue samples, which hold amazing, restorative DNA applications that even NatGov allows (while it bans the scientist’s writings). But the sacred flesh is failing over time. Meanwhile, Crane’s freelance programmer brother becomes enmeshed in a Lumbre social movement (with cultish overtones) that may lead him astray, politically and in his fragile marriage. Hanging over the characters is the threat of NatGov’s wrath, but Johnston shies away from action-violence and simple black-and-white morality with a resolution more about science puzzles and societal problem-solving than chases or fights. Some may find the author’s conclusion almost too upbeat for the likes of NatGov. Others will enjoy that late in the ingenious narrative he embeds a shoutout to Kurt Vonnegut’s The Sirens of Titan, which is pretty good company for Vonnegut as well as Johnston.
A clever extrapolation of today’s sociopolitical pathologies to the next century, with an uncommonly optimistic dose of medicine in the end.Pub Date: March 20, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-692-08616-2
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: April 30, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
An unusual and mesmerizing novel, gracefully written and deeply disturbing.
In her first novel to be published in English, South Korean writer Han divides a story about strange obsessions and metamorphosis into three parts, each with a distinct voice.
Yeong-hye and her husband drift through calm, unexceptional lives devoid of passion or anything that might disrupt their domestic routine until the day that Yeong-hye takes every piece of meat from the refrigerator, throws it away, and announces that she's become a vegetarian. Her decision is sudden and rigid, inexplicable to her family and a society where unconventional choices elicit distaste and concern that borders on fear. Yeong-hye tries to explain that she had a dream, a horrifying nightmare of bloody, intimate violence, and that's why she won't eat meat, but her husband and family remain perplexed and disturbed. As Yeong-hye sinks further into both nightmares and the conviction that she must transform herself into a different kind of being, her condition alters the lives of three members of her family—her husband, brother-in-law, and sister—forcing them to confront unsettling desires and the alarming possibility that even with the closest familiarity, people remain strangers. Each of these relatives claims a section of the novel, and each section is strikingly written, equally absorbing whether lush or emotionally bleak. The book insists on a reader’s attention, with an almost hypnotically serene atmosphere interrupted by surreal images and frighteningly recognizable moments of ordinary despair. Han writes convincingly of the disruptive power of longing and the choice to either embrace or deny it, using details that are nearly fantastical in their strangeness to cut to the heart of the very human experience of discovering that one is no longer content with life as it is.
An unusual and mesmerizing novel, gracefully written and deeply disturbing.Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-553-44818-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Hogarth
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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