Dear Cyborgs
A Novel
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3.3 • 4 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
One of Vol. 1 Brooklyn's Favorite Fiction Books of 2017, a Literary Hub Staff Favorite Book of 2017, and one of BOMB Magazine's "Looking Back on 2017: Literature" Selections.
"Wondrous . . . [A] sense of the erratic and tangential quality of everyday life—even if it’s displaced into a bizarre, parallel world—drifts off the page, into the world you see, after reading Dear Cyborgs." —Hua Hsu, The New Yorker
In a small Midwestern town, two Asian American boys bond over their outcast status and a mutual love of comic books. Meanwhile, in an alternative or perhaps future universe, a team of superheroes ponder modern society during their time off. Between black-ops missions and rescuing hostages, they swap stories of artistic malaise and muse on the seemingly inescapable grip of market economics.
Gleefully toying with the conventions of the novel, Dear Cyborgs weaves together the story of a friendship’s dissolution with a provocative and timely meditation on protest. Through a series of linked monologues, a lively cast of characters explores narratives of resistance—protest art, eco-terrorists, Occupy squatters, pyromaniacal militants—and the extent to which any of these can truly withstand and influence the cold demands of contemporary capitalism. All the while, a mysterious cybernetic book of clairvoyance beckons, and trusted allies start to disappear.
Entwining comic-book villains with cultural critiques, Eugene Lim’s Dear Cyborgs is a fleet-footed literary exploration of power, friendship, and creativity. Ambitious and knowing, it combines detective pulps, subversive philosophy, and Hollywood chase scenes, unfolding like the composites and revelations of a dream.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Two radically different story lines one involving a short-lived friendship between two Asian-American boys in the Midwest, the other an ongoing philosophical debate amongst a team of superheroes are cleverly tied together in this short, sly, unorthodox novel. Opening in suburban Ohio, the first chapter describes the intense bond formed, mostly over comic books, between the narrator and his classmate, Vu, before a sudden move to Chicago separates them. The story's focus abruptly shifts to the superheroes known as Team Chaos, who dine in Thai restaurants and sing karaoke amidst discussions of Occupy Wall Street, diversification as assimilation, performance artist Tehching Hsieh, activist Richard Aoki, and more. Back in "reality," the narrator marries, divorces, and has a child, but a sharp awareness of Vu's absence continues to haunt him, which makes their coincidental reunion (and the retrospective depth that it adds to the superheroes' conversations) an immensely satisfying closing chapter. Some might find Lim's (The Strangers) bricolage style too disorienting, but others will revel in how it mirrors the characters' alienation and confused search for answers. The core relationships, whether they're between estranged childhood friends or opinionated superhumans, are real and profoundly moving.
