Anthem : a novel

Title:

Anthem : a novel

Author:

Summary:

Something is happening to teenagers across America, spreading through memes only they can parse. At the Float Anxiety Abatement Center, in a suburb of Chicago, Simon Oliver is trying to recover from his sister’s tragic passing. He breaks out to join a woman named Louise and a man called The Prophet on a quest as urgent as it is enigmatic. Who lies at the end of the road? A man known as The Wizard, whose past encounter with Louise sparked her own collapse. Their quest becomes a rescue mission when they join up with a man whose sister is being held captive by the Wizard, impregnated and imprisoned in a tower. Noah Hawley’s new novel is an adventure that finds unquenchable lights in dark corners. Unforgettably vivid characters and a plot as fast and bright as pop cinema blend in a Vonnegutian story that is as timeless as a Grimm’s fairy tale. It is a leap into the idiosyncratic pulse of the American heart, written with the bravado, literary power, and feverish foresight that have made Hawley one of our most essential writers. -- Amazon.com.

Edition:

First edition.

Physical Description:

x, 429 pages ; 24 cm

Genre:

Thrillers (Fiction)

Dystopian fiction.

Subject Term:

Teenagers -- Fiction.

Missing children -- Fiction.

Suicide -- Fiction.

Sex crimes -- Fiction.

Women judges -- Fiction.

Geographic Term:

Chicago (Ill.) -- Fiction.

Publisher:

Grand Central Publishing,

Publication Date:

2022

ISBN:

9781538711514

Publication Information:

New York : Grand Central Publishing, 2022.

Call Number:

HAWLEY

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Item Barcode	Collection	Call Number	Status	Item Holds
33607003551366	Adult Fiction	HAWLEY Noah	Searching... Unknown	Searching... Unavailable

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

" A blistering thriller that follows a group of teenagers on an adventure through an apocalyptic America much like our own." ― Entertainment Weekly

Bestselling author of Before the Fall and Emmy Award-winning screenwriter Noah Hawley (FX's Fargo ) returns with a chilling and prophetic allegory of America as it is now and as it could be.

It begins with a Song...

In a country divided by pandemic, climate change, and incendiary rhetoric, a new plague infects American teens via social media: a contagious new meme spreading chaos and fear. Desperate parents look for something, anything to stop the madness. At the Float Anxiety Abasement Center, in a suburb of Chicago, Simon Oliver is trying to recover from his sister's tragic passing. He breaks out to join a woman named Louise and a man called the Prophet on a quest as urgent as it is enigmatic. Who lies at the end of the road? A man known as the Wizard, whose past encounter with Louise sparked her own collapse. Their quest becomes a rescue mission as those most in danger race to save one life - and the country's future.

Anthem is rich with unforgettably vivid characters, as fast and bright as pop cinema. Noah Hawley takes readers along for a leap into the idiosyncratic pulse of the American heart, written with the playfulness, biting wit, literary power, and foresight that have made him one of our most essential writers.

Author Notes

Noah Hawley is an Emmy, Golden Globe, Critics' Choice, and Peabody Award-winning author, screenwriter and producer.

Noah is the author of A Conspiracy of Tall Men (1998), Other People's Weddings (2004), The Punch (2008), The Good Father (2012), and Before the Fall (2016). He also wrote the script for the feature film Lies and Alibis.

(Bowker Author Biography)

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

At the start of this grim, thought-provoking near-future thriller from Hawley (Before the Fall), five Wisconsin teenagers die by suicide in less than two weeks, each writing "A11" somewhere near where their bodies are found. The plague spreads nationwide and then internationally, creating a mind-numbing death count. Adults struggle to understand what's happening, some theorizing that the fatalities are a consequence of the Covid pandemic's social isolation. Many fear the suicides represent an "act of collective surrender" presaging the extinction of humanity. Meanwhile, 15-year-old Simon Oliver, who found his older sister dead from overdosing on the opioids their family business manufactured, is told by a fellow resident of the Float Anxiety Abatement Center near Chicago, who calls himself the Prophet, that Oliver is central to establishing a new utopia to be started by children to save the species and the planet. Oliver joins the Prophet and some others in escaping from Float to realize the Prophet's vision. From the ominous sentence that opens the main narrative ("The summer our children began to kill themselves was the hottest in history"), the author creates an all-too-plausible dystopia rendered believable through matter-of-fact prose. Hawley makes this sing by combining the social commentary of a Margaret Atwood novel with the horrors of a Stephen King book. Agent: Susan Golomb, Writers House. (Jan.)

Library Journal Review

Award-winning screenwriter/director/producer Hawley's recent Before the Fall won lavish love, New York Times best-selling credentials, and both Edgar and ITW thriller honors. So it's no surprise that his new literary thriller is being billed as the first big novel of 2022. With opioid addiction, environmental devastation, and clownface-dabbed vigilantes corroding their surroundings, U.S. teens desperately communicate with memes only they know and understand. Seeking to mend his grief over his sister's death, Simon Oliver attends the Float Anxiety Abatement Center near Chicago, where he meets Louise and The Prophet and joins in their wild-hare quest to free a young woman from a dangerous man called The Wizard. Immediate concerns within an ageless mission-driven, phantasmagorical format.