Halcyon
A novel
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4.0 • 9 Ratings
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
A daring new novel, at once timely and timeless, set around an American family and the ever-shifting sands of history and memory and legacy that define them (“An expert juggling act.” —Stephen Markley, New York Times Book Review)
Martin Neumann, recently divorced, is living at Halcyon, the Virginia estate of renowned lawyer, family patriarch, and World War II hero Robert Ableson. It’s 2004, and Gore is entering his second term as president, when news breaks that scientists have discovered a cure for death. Suddenly, Martin is forced to question everything he thought he understood about the world around him. Who is Ableson, really? Why has Martin been drawn into the Ablesons’ most closely guarded family secrets? Is this new science a miraculous good or an insidious evil?
From pivotal elections to crumbling marriages, from the Civil War to the Battle of Saipan, Halcyon is a profound and probing novel that grapples with what history means, who is affected by it, and how the complexities of our shared future rest on the dual foundations of remembering and forgetting.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this thought-provoking alternate history from Ackerman (2034), Bill Clinton resigns after his 1998 impeachment and Al Gore, as president, funds genetic research on human resurrection. Robert Ableson, a prominent attorney, is a successful test case of the Lazarus treatment, having been brought back to life after dying from pneumonia. The narrator, historian Martin Neumann, has been living in a cottage on Ableson's estate while working on a book about the Civil War. The genetic revolution coincides with a movement to remove Confederate monuments, which bothers Neumann and raises questions for him about how to best understand the past. Neumann also bemoans the country's "plague of polarization" that persists despite Gore's decisive action after the 9/11 attacks. George W. Bush is again nominated to run against Gore in 2004, and Bush's platform includes eliminating Gore's resurrectionist research. Meanwhile, with Gore's reelection hanging in the balance, Ableson struggles to adjust to his new lease on life, threatening to undermine Lazarus's viability. Ableson also surprises Neumann by scheming to squash a student petition to remove a Confederate monument with some lawyerly tricks. Though the monument debates feel well-worn, Ackerman is great at probing the scientific ethics of resurrection. This visionary tale is worth a look.
