40
A Novel
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4.0 • 5 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
From the award-winning author Alan Heathcock comes an American myth of the future: a vision of civil war, spectacle, and disaster of biblical proportions.
In a future America ravaged by natural disaster, pandemic, and political unrest, a fundamentalist faction emerges. As the Novae Terrae gain power, enticing civilians with bread and circuses, a civil war breaks out between its members and the US government.
Mazzy Goodwin, a young soldier, only wants to find her little sister, Ava Lynn. One day, she wakes in a bomb crater to find wings emerged from her back. Has she died? Been gifted wings by God? Undergone a military experiment?
The world sees a miracle. Mazzy is coaxed into seeing it as an opportunity: to become the angel-like figurehead of the revolution, in return for being reunited with her sister. Her journey leads her to New Los Angeles, where the Novae have set up the headquarters for their propaganda machine––right in the ruins of Hollywood. Aided by friends old and new, she must navigate a web of deceit while staying true to herself.
Told in sharp, haunting prose, as cinematic as it is precise, Alan Heathcock’s 40 is a dizzyingly fantastical novel about the dangers of blind faith, the temptation of spectacle, and the love of family. In a tale by turns mythic and tragic, one heroine must come to terms with the consequences of her decisions––and face the challenges of building a new world.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
This mind-bending novel imagines a brutal and fascinating apocalyptic future. Mazzy is a desperate young soldier looking for her lost sister in a U.S. that’s been ravaged by disease, natural disasters, and civil war. Then something surreal happens: Mazzy wakes up one morning having inexplicably grown large, beautifully feathered wings. Mazzy’s transformation makes her a target for one of the country’s warring factions, who think her ethereal image would make a perfect mascot for their self-serving cause. Alan Heathcock blends themes of love and family with transportive elements of magical realism and ominous visions of a possible dystopian future. His lean writing style conjures vivid images of scorpion-filled landscapes and the chilling prospect of an unseen demagogue whose anonymity is their superpower. This unforgettable adventure is thrilling, beautiful, and absolutely epic.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A "Great Quake" has exacerbated environmental disasters and divided a postapocalyptic America geologically and civilly in Heathcock's tepid debut novel (after the collection Volt). Religious organizations are hunted down by the government, which wields the army as its means of civilizing the new world order. Mazzy Goodwin is a soldiers, but when she inexplicably sprouts a pair of wings while standing in a bomb crater, she becomes an unlikely savior. After Mazzy's mother is killed and her sister Ava Lynn captured, she is inducted into the settlement known only as 40, last bastion of Christian sect the Novae Terrae, led by the charismatic Jo Sam. Mazzy, accompanied by her boyfriend, Dewey Chang, goes in pursuit of Ava Lynn and comes to know the Novae Terrae, including her chaperone Donta; vivacious actor Nalli Sandoval; famous imposter Raja Garbos, seldom dressed without his signature eye patch; and fallen producer Astoria. Taken for an angel, Mazzy questions her loyalties, especially after striking a bargain with a general for help with finding Ava Lynn in exchange for supporting Jo Sam. An engaging setting can't entirely disguise that this is by-the-numbers postapocalyptic fare, and Mazzy isn't much of a protagonist. It works as a diversion, but don't come expecting staying power.
