Synopses & Reviews
In Jonathan Carroll's surreal masterpiece,
Bathing the Lion, five people who live in the same New England town go to sleep one night and all share the same hyper-realistic dream. Some of these people know each other; some don't.
When they wake the next day all of them know what has happened. All five were at one time “mechanics,” a kind of cosmic repairman whose job is to keep order in the universe and clean up the messes made both by sentient beings and the utterly fearsome yet inevitable Chaos that periodically rolls through, wreaking mayhem wherever it touches down — a kind of infinitely powerful, merciless tornado. Because the job of a mechanic is grueling and exhausting, after a certain period all of them are retired and sent to different parts of the cosmos to live out their days as "civilians." Their memories are wiped clean and new identities are created for them that fit the places they go to live out their natural lives to the end.
For the first time all retired mechanics are being brought back to duty: Chaos has a new plan, and it's not looking good for mankind...
Review
"Carroll's skill is such that, even as his canvas expands to cosmic scale, we never forget the guilt, longing and love that drives these figures, lending them genuine poignancy." Chicago Tribune
Review
"Bathing the Lion is a departure for Jonathan Carroll: a work of surrealist world-building, which reminded me at times of both Philip K Dick and of Julio Cortazar. Carroll unpeels what it means to be human, and why something would pretend to be human in a book that is as exciting as it is thoughtful." Neil Gaiman
Review
"Philip K. Dick meets Kurt Vonnegut with startlingly well-drawn characters, and the overall effect is one of the poignancy of day-to-day existence contrasting with the galactic scale of 'life, the universe and everything.'" Library Journal
About the Author
Jonathan Carroll is the author of eighteen novels including The Land of Love, Wooden Sea, White Apples, and The Ghost in Love among others. He graduated cum laude from Rutgers University and studied for his Masters Degree at the University of Virginia while working as an English teacher. His love of teaching took him to the American International School in Vienna, Austria. Carroll currently writes and lives in Vienna.