A Little More Human
A Novel
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- £7.49
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- £7.49
Publisher Description
A dazzling new novel from the author of the “weird, thrilling, and inimitable” Woke Up Lonely (Marie Claire)
Meet Phil Snyder: new father, nursing assistant at a cutting-edge biotech facility on Staten Island, and all-around decent guy. Trouble is, his life is falling apart. His wife has betrayed him, his job involves experimental surgeries with strange side effects, and his father is hiding early-onset dementia. Phil also has a special talent he doesn’t want to publicize—he’s a mind reader and moonlights as Brainstorm, a costumed superhero. But when Phil wakes up from a blackout drunk and is confronted with photos that seem to show him assaulting an unknown woman, even superpowers won’t help him. Try as he might, Phil can’t remember that night, and so, haunted by the need to know, he mind-reads his way through the lab techs at work, adoring fans at Toy Polloi, and anyone else who gets in his way, in an attempt to determine whether he’s capable of such violence. A Little More Human, rife with layers of paranoia and conspiracy, questions how well we really know ourselves, showcasing Fiona Maazel at her tragicomic, freewheeling best.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Maazel's (Woke Up Lonely) third novel blends science fiction, satire, farce, literary mystery, and comic book adventure that probes the human heart even as it describes drugs and robotics propelling us into a bionic, posthuman world. During the week, nursing assistant Phil Snyder works at SCET, his family's Staten Island biotech firm specializing in new and experimental treatments for brain injuries, while weekends he dresses up as popular superhero Brainstorm for toy stores and children's events. Like Brainstorm, Phil can read minds; unlike Brainstorm, his life is spiraling out of control. Without his knowledge, his wife has become pregnant through a sperm bank. His father, Doc, an SCET cofounder, is rapidly succumbing to dementia. Worst of all, Phil receives four photos in the mail showing him in his Brainstorm costume, stripped to the waist, standing over a battered woman. Unable to remember what happened the night the photos were taken, Phil seeks out the victim, Effie, and embarks on a journey involving an unidentified dead body and a series of unanswered questions. Maazel's clever, incisive prose makes the roller-coaster plot a fun if exhausting ride.
