Bug
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
With the wicked humor and imagination that made readers fall in love with his novel I Am God, Giacomo Sartori brings us a madcap story of family dysfunction, (dis)ability, intelligent robots, bees, and a family of misfit savants living outside the bounds.
In the singular world of the young, deaf narrator of Bug, there are just a handful of people who try to understand him when he gets into trouble at school. His father, a data analyst for Nutella whose real job is to pinpoint terrorists, is clueless about humans in real life. His brilliant brother, called IQ in public and Robin Hood in the hackersphere, has his back but is ever busier training his robot. His grandfather, a retired anarchist-guerilla-turned-nematologist, chides him for misbehaving when he takes him hunting for worms. Meanwhile, his Buddhist beekeeper mother, ordinarily his closest confidante, has been in a coma ever since a terrible car accident.
Just when the family’s survival in their converted chicken coop seems most precarious, someone—or something—new enters his life: Bug. This self-declared “fast friend” seems to know all about his family and has some creative, if not strictly legal, ideas about how to help....
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Italian novelist Sartori (I Am God) delivers a witty tale of family resilience and a dangerous, homemade AI bot. After the nameless, deaf 10-year-old narrator's mother is left in a coma after a car accident, the narrator bites a schoolmate in frustration and is suspended. Now stuck at home, the boy works with a tutor while dealing with his quirky family members: a computer programmer father who seeks help from his 13-year-old computer hacker son, IQ, to fulfill a contract with a U.S. intelligence agency; and a pot-smoking grandfather who studies worms. Added to this ensemble is the narrator's mysterious new digital friend, BUG, the result of one of IQ's many computer experiments. The boy enjoys BUG's company, but as their communications continue, he begins to suspect BUG is interfering with the world around him, from turning off the television to infiltrating the school's computer system and allowing for his readmittance. While Sartori tends to pile on the similes ("I climbed lightly, like a spider"; "Papa howls like a wolf") and rushes his conclusion, the characters' antics escalate in inventive and unexpected ways. This is worth a spin.
