A Free Man
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- €8.99
Publisher Description
An unusual and remarkable dystopian novel
A Free Man is a satirical tall tale presented as the drug and alcohol fuelled conversation of two old friends getting reacquainted over one night. It’s also a boy-meets-girl story of the worst kind and a time travel story about a future where the world is ruled by robots and humans are vermin. When timelines cross, the world as we know it bends . . .
Skid Roe is completely self-absorbed and delusional. His struggle to exercise free will is constantly hampered by the physical manifestation of his inner demons and by the norms and rules of contemporary life. He’s both aided and hindered by Lem, a robot from the future whose good intentions leave Skid on the run from a shadowy state security agency.
A surreal, beautiful, and powerful literary mash-up, Basilières’ long-awaited sophomore effort is inventive and darkly funny.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
One day, as the narrator is hard at work writing his second novel, an old friend named Skid Roe shows up at his door with some weed, wine, and a fantastical story detailing his failed attempts to court his young coworker NaNa, which takes up most of the novel (the narrator's interjections are relegated to footnotes). Skid is both helped and hindered in his quest by Lem, a shape-shifting, mind-reading robot from 300 years in the future. Lem, however, has plans of his own he's determined to convince Skid to follow him into the future for the purposes of breeding "a sustainable population." This novel is labelled a "pre-apocalyptic dystopia," depicting a world where everything is annotated and copyrighted. Skid is proto-punk he cares little for technology or material things; he views those around him as if they are denizens of a zoo. Basilieres (Black Bird) relays Skid's story as if it were one long, uninterrupted screed, pushing the narrator to the margins while the self-absorbed Skid takes center stage. The narrative plays loosely with established dystopian tropes; its message that we are most likely our own undoing is ultimately skin-deep, offering little insight, but the story is a great deal of fun all the same.
