Synopses & Reviews
Jeffrey Rotter’s "brilliantly comic" debut novel has "earned him every kind of comparison—Kaufmanesque, Vonnegutesque, Pynchonesque" (
New Statesman, U.K.).
Jim Rath’s wife has grown tired of his hobbies: his immaculately maintained comics collection, his creepy underwater experiments, and his dreams of building a museum based on the Aquatic Ape Theory of Human Evolution. On the night that she leaves him, Jim thinks he has spotted an emissary from a lost aquatic race called the Nautikons. In truth, the man is a low-level government inspector—a man harboring his own strange fantasies. What follows is a riveting story of two delusional and quixotic men who stalk each other toward a bloody showdown—a spectacularly moronic act at an aging water park. In The Unknown Knowns, Jeffrey Rotter takes everyday domestic fixations and turns them into a stunning portrayal of the human condition.
Review
"A wonderful book -- smart, tight, and funny -- A Confederacy of Dunces meets Linus waiting for the Great Pumpkin. I loved it." -- Douglas Coupland, author of Generation X and The Gum Thief
Review
"Jeffrey Rotter's first novel inhabits -- and illuminates -- an eerie landscape where romantic fantasy, paranoid delusion, and homeland security thrillingly intersect: in other words, twenty-first-century America." -- Jennifer Egan, author of Look at Me and The Keep
Review
"Vonnegutesque...A hyperintelligent, surrealistic tale with a wackiness factor worthy of Kilgore Trout." -- Booklist (starred review)
Review
"An offbeat and Pynchonesque debut...genuinely funny." -- Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Perceptive and humorous.... Rotter's imagination is formidable and fresh." -- Joseph Salvatore, New York Times Book Review
Review
"Absurdly hilarious in a Charlie Kaufmanesque kind of way...Smart about paranoia...Freshly observed." -- Gary Shteyngart, author of Absurdistan and The Russian Debutante's Handbook
Review
“Perceptive and humorous… Goes beyond the obvious sendup to explore the private and at times desperate ways his characters strive to secure their own homeland… Rotter’s imagination is formidable and fresh."
— Joseph Salvatore, New York Times Book Review
Review
“Riotous-yet-highly controlled… Rotter [has] imaginative verve and eye for absurdity -- personal, literary and political.”
— Kerry Fried, Newsday
Review
"Absurdly hilarious... So smart about paranoia, so freshly observed, I feared the era of Rumsfeld had returned."
— Gary Shteyngart, author of Absurdistan and The Russian Debutante's Handbook
Synopsis
Now in paperback, a startlingly original debut novel about a man whose marriage unravels as he becomes obsessed with an ancient aquatic race.
Synopsis
Jeffrey Rotter's brilliantly comic debut novel has earned him every kind of comparison--Kaufmanesque, Vonnegutesque, Pynchonesque (New Statesman, U.K.).
Jim Rath's wife has grown tired of his hobbies: his immaculately maintained comics collection, his creepy underwater experiments, and his dreams of building a museum based on the Aquatic Ape Theory of Human Evolution. On the night that she leaves him, Jim thinks he has spotted an emissary from a lost aquatic race called the Nautikons. In truth, the man is a low-level government inspector--a man harboring his own strange fantasies. What follows is a riveting story of two delusional and quixotic men who stalk each other toward a bloody showdown--a spectacularly moronic act at an aging water park. In The Unknown Knowns, Jeffrey Rotter takes everyday domestic fixations and turns them into a stunning portrayal of the human condition.
About the Author
Jeffrey Rotter holds an MFA from Hunter College where he studied under Peter Carey, Colson Whitehead, Colum McCann, and Andrew Sean Greer and was awarded the Hertog fellowship to perform research for Jennifer Egan. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and young son. The Unknown Knowns is his first novel.