Samuel Johnson's Eternal Return
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4.3 • 4 Ratings
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
“A comic-philosophical novel, the other side of the same coin as Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being.” —The Wall Street Journal As a boy in an isolated religious community in Pennsylvania, Samuel Johnson sneaks off to watch TV with a neighbor girl—whom he eventually grows up and marries, only to lose her at a young age. When he too dies just a few years later, he inexplicably finds himself in the body of the man who killed him, unable to depart this world but determined, at least, to return to the son he left behind. Moving from body to body as each one expires, Samuel’s soul journeys on a comic quest through an American half-century, inhabiting lives that are as stymied, in their ways, as his own. A ghost story of the most unexpected sort, Martin Riker’s extraordinary debut is “a darkly funny contemporary story” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch) about the ways experience is mediated, the unstoppable drive for human connection, and the struggle to be more fully alive in the world. “Like a television rerun, Samuel’s situation repeats, but the story of his eternal return does end, as all books must, in a manner that is absolutely dazzling.”—Los Angeles Times “Unforgettable.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Riker's charming and thoughtful debut opens with the titular Samuel entering young adulthood in a secluded community in Pennsylvania during the 1950s and early '60s. Against his parents' wishes, he secretly watches television with a neighbor, whom he falls in love with and eventually marries. They have a son, his wife dies in childbirth, and Samuel's existence is further rocked when a roaming vagrant tries to kidnap the child when he is 3 years old. During the scuffle, Samuel is killed, and his spirit inexplicably enters the body of his assailant. Now unable to interact from inside this new vessel, Samuel spends decades bouncing from one body to the next, moving on to a new host after his current host dies, inertly looking through the eyes of strangers, all as he attempts to conjure a method to influence his hosts' actions and make his way home to his son. This shaggy journey shuttles him back and forth across the U.S., as well as oceans, and much like the TV programs Samuel consumes, the bodies he inhabits represent a variety of narrative genres. Riker is a gifted storyteller, and his novel's enchanting exploration of humanity and philosophy, of how humans connect with their environment and community, is unforgettable.
