A Book A Week

"Proof is irrelevant. Reality has become a personal choice, denial of reality a weapon."

The past couple of years has been difficult. I don't think you could talk to anyone who would disagree. First, there is the global pandemic, a health crisis that has stollen the lives of far too many people. It continues to ravage us in new forms, even as I write this. With COVID has come a host of other problems. People have lost their jobs, lost their loved ones, lost their sanity as they quarantine from the rest of society. And here's the thing, the pandemic isn't the only thing that's made the last few years troubling. Climate change has reached a point of being undeniable. Storms and fires are billed as "100-year weather events" even as they seem to happen every few weeks. We are at the point of not choosing how to stop climate change (most scientists agree that it is far too late for that) but how we will mitigate the impact of it. And then there's politics. For better or worse, the 2016 US Presidential Election and the events that have followed seem to have forever changed the way politics happens in our county. People are more divided than ever. Simply put, things have not been easy. 

Noah Hawley, an author well known as executive producer, writer, and showrunner of the hit TV series Fargo as well as for his bestselling 2016 novel Before The Fall, has lived through this reality just like the rest of us. His latest novel Anthem is set in a world that closely mirrors the bleak times that we have all been facing. Be warned, this is a dark work that doesn't shy away from some tough subjects. Suicide, sexual assault, and violence line the pages of this story, reflecting the grim state of the world. There were several times where the real world and Hawley's fiction were too similar for me to stomach, forcing me to pause and take some moments away from the book. Still, he presents a powerful and poignant narrative that forces the reader to reflect on the state of the world we share, thrilling us and moving us along the way. If you can get past the initial shock of it all, the book is well worth exploring further. 

"The adults are lost. We, their children, are starting over."

The children of the world are committing mass suicide. The adults are at a loss for what to do about it. Why is this happening? It could be that spending the last few years only interacting with the computer screen in front of them instead of with real people has taken the ultimate toll on them. Perhaps it is the realization that the world that older generations are leaving to them is in worse shape than what they inherited. Whatever the reasons, youth suicide has become an epidemic. For young Simon Oliver, suicide has been all he can think about recently. Not because he has thought of the act himself, but because he was the unlucky soul to discover his older sister's body. Since that day, Simon has been in the Float Anxiety Abatement Center. He's mostly unaware of just how bad things have gotten outside. Simon's internal turmoil is about to collide with the strife of the outside world in a way that he could never have imagined. 

In the treatment center, Simon meets Louise, a young woman who has a troubled past of her own. She tells of her time in the clutches of The Wizard, an extremely wealthy, Jeffery Epstein-type man who rapes young girls to fulfill his own twisted desires. Simon and Louise encounter another young man, The Prophet, who claims that God speaks through him, encouraging him to break out of the center, establish a utopia, and rescue the country. No small task for a group of troubled youth, especially given the state of the rest of the world. America is on the brink of collapse. Fires rage across the lands and in the souls of those who inhabit them. Through these everyday kids, we see this epic tale unfold before us. 

"The apocalypse, it turns out, is easy. There is no confusion, no uncertainty about the stakes. The world is in chaos. You must survive. End of story."

It is difficult to put into words what Noah Hawley's newest novel is. Anthem is epic in scope, thrilling at times, and difficult to grasp at others. The work holds a lens up to the world we are living in, making it impossible to discern where reality ends and fiction begins. Hawley is constantly shifting perspectives to various characters, showing flashbacks and present moments, all in an attempt to fully capture the world he is portraying. He even breaks down the fourth wall several times, inserting the perspective of 'the author' into the grand narrative he tells. Despite the large scale and complexity of this story, I never felt that the book buckled under the sheer weight of itself. Hawley is a master at a character study. He takes his time to ground each character, even the villains. This helped keep me connected to the story at each moment. I'll be interested to see what other readers ultimately make of Anthem. I'm guessing you'll either really love it, or won't be able to get through it. For many, the closeness of this plot to our present lives may be too close for comfort. Like most great works though, Anthem attempts to capture a time and place, chronicling our present history through some of the most imaginative fiction I've ever read. For me, that makes it a fantastic read. 

For more information visit the author's website, Amazon, and Goodreads. 

(2022, 2)

If this sounds like a novel you would like to read, enter to win a copy courtesy of Grand Central Publishing. US/Canada entries only. No P.O. boxes, please. The winner will have 48 hrs from contact to respond.