Ivyland
A Novel
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- €11.99
Publisher Description
“Delightfully manic and sharply intelligent... Klee is undoubtedly a formidable talent in the making—he can make sentences crackle with an intensity and humor not seen since David Foster Wallace.” —Publishers Weekly
“The exquisitely talented Miles Klee's Ivyland is a weird, sensitive, totally messed up and wonderful book.” —Choire Sicha, editor, The Awl
“Ivyland is a harsh, spastic novel about drug-addled misfits clawing their way through a wrecked future that feels disconcertingly familiar. As if that wasn't enough, it's also got evil caterpillars, flung jellyfish, great prose, new drugs, sharp jokes, a stolen ice cream truck and a miracle tree.” —Justin Taylor
“Miles Klee’s fiction is not only devastatingly smart; it’s also ruthlessly hilarious. But I love it most for the manic comedy it manages to wring from despair: that’s a talent that’s likely to be more and more valuable in the coming years.” —Jim Shepard
“Apocalyptic, word-drunk, inventive, hilarious--and that doesn't begin to cover Miles Klee's exuberant first novel. His catastrophic caterpillars alone are worth the journey; both the vision and the language delight.”—Andrea Barrett
NAMED A FINALIST IN THE 2013 TOURNAMENT OF BOOKS.
It’s spring in Ivyland . . .
Debut novelist Miles Klee takes a landscape of drugs, decay, loss and, perhaps, hope, and manages to make the ensemble wryly funny: something only a few notable contemporaries such as Jeff Vandermeer and Michael Chabon have been able to do. Post-urban New Jersey is instantly recognizable in this interlinked series of short vignettes.
. . . and Lev’s living room is puddles of water and sun, and a bunch of those furry caterpillars are hauling themselves from surface to surface.
Populated by a bumbling, murderous citizenry of corrupt cops, innocents, ravenous addicts, lovesick geniuses, and cynical adventurers, Ivyland operates in the shadow of a giant pharmaceutical corporation that thrives on people’s weaknesses . . . and may have an even more sinister agenda. It’s our world, only a bit more extreme, and lovingly, precisely depicted with the adept skills native to a master of dark humor.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set in Ivyland, a New Jersey town that has been purchased and completely taken over by Endless Nutraceuticals, a mysterious and possibly sinister pharmaceutical giant, Klee's debut novel follows the interconnected lives of a menagerie of Ivyland residents as they attempt to live in this postmodern wasteland of drugs and despair. Central to the plot are Aidan and Henri, a pair of bumbling friends who must reckon with a group of pilgrims camping out on their front lawn, as well as their growing realization that their lives are going nowhere; Cal, Aidan's astronaut brother whose mission to the moon is coming to a catastrophic end; and DH, a desperate addict who finds himself assisting a renegade surgeon as they travel across America in search of gullible patients and their next fix. Wildly hopscotching its way through time, the novel offers some haunting imagery and poignant moments, but after a delightfully manic and sharply intelligent first half, the novel stagnates, burdened by the necessity of resolving the multiple plots it has set in motion. Klee is undoubtedly a formidable talent in the making he can make sentences crackle with an intensity and humor not seen since David Foster Wallace but in the end, his highly ambitious premise proves too much for him.
