Barnes and Noble has selected Noah Hawley’s Anthem as the latest pick for its book club, the bookseller announced in a news release.
Hawley’s novel, published Tuesday by Grand Central, is a thriller set in post-Covid-19 America. It tells the story of a group of young friends who escape from a mental health facility on a quest to take down a villainous billionaire. A critic for Kirkus praised the novel’s “excellent action scenes,” but overall found the book “simultaneously too much and not enough.”
Shannon DeVito, Barnes and Noble’s director of books, praised Hawley’s novel as “multifaceted and brilliant.”
“The unforgettable characters pair with a plot as fast and bright as pop cinema,” DeVito said. “Noah Hawley writes with the bravado and literary power that has made him into one of the most treasured writers in American literature.”
Hawley, the creator of the television shows Fargo and Legion, is the author of five previous novels, including A Conspiracy of Tall Men, The Good Father, and Before the Fall.
“For any novel in our modern world to be successful, first it has to cut through the noise. Social media, online culture, entertainment on demand,” Hawley said. “I’m grateful to Barnes [and] Noble for helping me take that first, critical step. For Anthem [to] be singled out by this hallowed institution as a noteworthy book, a book you have to read, not just want to read, is a true honor.”
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
