Synopses & Reviews
A triumphant literary debut with notes of both
The Art of Fielding and
The Flamethrowers, which introduces the striking figure of Owen Burr, a gifted Olympics-bound athlete whose dreams of greatness are deferred and then transformed by an unlikely journey from California to Berlin, Athens, Iceland, and back again.
Owen Burr, a towering athlete at Stanford University, son of renowned classicist Professor Joseph Burr, was destined to compete in the Athens Olympic Games of 2004. But in his final match at Stanford, he is blinded in one eye. The wound shatters his identity and any prospects he had as an athlete.
Determined to make a new name for himself, Owen flees the country and lands in Berlin, where he meets a group of wildly successful artists living in the Teutonic equivalent of Warhol's Factory. An irresistible sight — nearly seven-feet-tall, wearing an eye patch and a corduroy suit — Owen is quickly welcomed by the group's leader, who schemes to appropriate Owen's image and sell the results at Art Basel. With his warped and tortured image on the auction block, Owen seeks revenge.
Professor Burr has never been the father he wants to be. Owen's disappearance triggers a call to action. He dusts off his more speculative theory, Liminalism, to embark on a speaking tour, pushing theory to its radical extreme — at his own peril and with Jean Baudrillard's help — in order to send up flares for his son in Athens, Berlin, and Iceland.
A compulsively readable novel of ideas, action, and intrigue, A Brave Man Seven Storeys Tall offers a persuasive vision of personal agency, art, family, and the narratives we build for ourselves.
Review
“Wry, smart, tender, huge-hearted, Will Chancellor strides onto the page in the spirit of Bellow with writing poised like poetry. A dauntless debut.” Paul Lynch
Review
“Owen Burr is a character unlike any you're likely to meet in contemporary literature. Watching him move through the world, and negotiate with his own dreams, is both powerful and revelatory.” Daniel Alarcón
Review
“Bracingly rich...the author maintains an almost thrillerlike pace while taking well-aimed shots at academic and art-market fads and helping two lost souls through essential transformations.” Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Review
“A globetrotting, witty, powerful and wildly ambitious novel that is at once a psychological journey and a terrific page-turner. Will Chancellor has an electrifying, deeply original voice, and his book is so full of depth and heart that its impossible to put down.” Molly Antopol, author of The UnAmericans
Review
“Chancellor shows great poise and command with this elegant and highly enjoyable first novel, which suggests that he has even more greatness to offer us.” Flavorwire
Review
“Chancellor writes in the established tradition of the American absurd, from Pynchon and Gaddis to DeLillo and Foster Wallace. Chancellor may be swinging for the former pair, but lands firmly, and thereby accessibly, in the latter.” BookPage
Review
“Delightfully bizarre and myth-drunk…A Brave Man Seven Storeys Tall's unflagging energy and dramatic battiness make it irresistible. Mr. Chancellor would probably call it Dionysian, and I wouldn't disagree.” Wall Street Journal
Review
“A strong new voice in fiction.” Timeout New York
Review
“To compare a debut novel to Infinite Jest is likely either too flippant or too generous, but consider the bona fides...Will Chancellor's wonderful debut novel...more than merely promising, is one of the best of the year.” Daily Beast
Review
“Simply one of the years finest books.” Largehearted Boy
Review
“A wild ride.” Dallas Morning News
Review
“Elegantly intertwines the spiritual and geographical journeys that father and son take in pursuit of fulfillment. This fusion succeeds in enriching both characters, as their trials and aspirations often run parallel. Chancellor has a wonderful ear for dialogue, and a keen understanding of how insecurity and ambition intersect.” Ploughshares
Review
“I fell in love…remind[s] me of the potential of literature.…It is a novel that could only be written by one person, at one particular time…the most ‘alive' book I've read this year.” John Warner, The Chicago Tribune
Review
“Wonderful passages of vivid prose and pungent dialogue occur throughout A Brave Man Seven Storeys Tall.…The marvelous Iceland chapters earthy and ruefully funny, warm yet coolly aware of absurdity suggest that [Will Chancellor] is already on his way [to growing up].” Washington Post
Review
“Chancellor pulls you into his universe, and even if you could get out, you wouldn't want to.” Interview
Synopsis
A beautiful and compulsively readable literary debut that introduces Owen Burr--an Olympian whose dreams of greatness are dashed and then transformed by an epic journey--and his father, Professor Joseph Burr, who must travel the world to find his son. After his athletic career ends abruptly, Owen flees the country to become an artist. He lands in Berlin where he meets a group of art monsters living in the Teutonic equivalent of Warhol's Factory. After his son's abrupt disappearance, Burr dusts off his more speculative ideas in a last-ditch effort to command both Owen's and the world's attention. A Brave Man Seven Storeys Tall offers a persuasive vision of faith, ambition, art, family, and the myths we write for ourselves.
Synopsis
"I fell in love... remind s] me of the potential of literature... It is a novel that could only be written by one person, at one particular time... the most 'alive' book I've read this year." -- John Warner, The Chicago Tribune
A beautiful and compulsively readable literary debut
A Brave Man Seven Storeys Tall introduces Owen Burr--an Olympian whose dreams of greatness are dashed and then transformed by an epic journey--and his father, Professor Joseph Burr, who must travel the world to find his son. After his athletic career ends abruptly, Owen flees the country to become an artist. He lands in Berlin where he meets a group of art monsters living in the Teutonic equivalent of Warhol's Factory. After his son's abrupt disappearance, Burr dusts off his more speculative ideas in a last-ditch effort to command both Owen's and the world's attention. A Brave Man Seven Storeys Tall offers a persuasive vision of faith, ambition, art, family, and the myths we write for ourselves.
Synopsis
A Brave Man Seven Storeys Tall is an exuberant literary debut — a novel of real ideas and a playful examination of our in-between world, one that explores the nature of family, identity, art, and belief while also marking the introduction of an original new voice in contemporary fiction.
Owen Burr is the six-foot-eight, Olympics-bound senior captain of the Stanford University water polo team. In his final collegiate match, however, he suffers a catastrophic injury that destroys his hopes and dreams, flattening his entire world into two dimensions. His identity as an athlete erased but his ambition indelible, he defies his father, a classics professor who lives in a "cave" of his own making, and moves to Berlin with naive plans to make conceptual art. Then he disappears.
Without a single clue as to his son's location, Dr. Burr embarks upon a tour of public lectures from Greece to Germany to Iceland in an attempt to draw out his endangered son. Instead, he foments a violent uprising.
About the Author
Will Chancellor grew up in Hawaii and Texas and lives in New York City. This is his first novel.