Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever?
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
The bestselling author of The Circle delivers a tour de force of one man struggling to make sense of his country, seeking solutions the only way he knows how. A "story about someone who takes revenge against the world because he can't fathom how he fits into it.... This is a one-sitting read" (USA Today).
What do you do when you’re full of questions: what happened to missions to the moon? Why spend a trillion dollars on war? Where did America go wrong?
If you’re Thomas, a young man nursing migraines and a lack of direction, this calls for drastic action. To find some answers, Thomas kidnaps a NASA astronaut and brings him to an abandoned military base on the edge of the California coast. Then the questioning begins. The answers must be honest. The back and forth might even hurt. It might get uncomfortable. But eventually the truth will emerge.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Composed entirely of dialogue, the latest from Eggers (The Circle) is more tedious deposition than gripping drama. The novel is set on an abandoned military base along the Pacific coast, where Thomas, a troubled man, is interrogating a diverse group of chained captives. Frustrated by his lack of purpose and in search of answers about injustices large and small, Thomas kidnaps Kev, a driven astronaut who represents "the one fulfilled promise" he's ever known. This first interview inspires Thomas to seek out further captives: an ex-congressman, a policeman, a disgraced schoolteacher, his own mother and others. Depending on the prisoner, Thomas is respectful or abusive, solicitous or prosecutorial, but he never wavers in his view of himself as a "moral" and "principled man." He is outraged at the abuses, shortsightedness, and skewed priorities of the government and its institutions, yet yearns for that government to provide him with some defining role or plan: "Don't we deserve grand human projects that give us meaning?" As for the captives, they generally respond to their unhinged interrogator with sententious or stilted speechifying: "Thomas, you want to attribute your behavior to a set of external factors." There are flashes of sardonic humor and revelations about the triggering event behind the kidnappings, but by then readers will feel as if they themselves have been detained far too long.
Customer Reviews
recommended~
really interesting book
A modern master
Mr. Eggers has proven once again that it is in our benefit to read his works. Always looking forward to the next.