Synopses & Reviews
One the irrepressibly inventive Jonathan Lethem could weld science fiction and the Western into a mesmerizing novel of exploration and otherness, sexual awakening and loss. At the age of 13 Pella Marsh loses her mother and her home on the scorched husk that is planet Earth. Her sorrowing family emigrates to the Planet of the Archbuilders, whose mysterious inhabitants have names like Lonely Dumptruck and Hiding Kneel
—and a civilization that and frightens their human visitors.
On this new world, spikily independent Pella becomes as uneasy envoy between two species. And at the same time is unwilling drawn to a violent loner who embodies all the paranoid machismo of the frontier ethic. Combining the tragic grandeur of John Ford's The Searchers and the sexual tension of Lolita and transporting them to a planet light years, Girl in Landscape is a tour de force.
Review
"[T]his lyrical, often far-fetched meditation on the founding myths of the 21st century remains thoroughly rooted in an emotional world much closer to home." Publishers Weekly
Review
"A cool, quirky, and oddly compelling coming-of-age story that raises questions that linger long after the book is read." Booklist
Review
"[I]ngenious and unsettling....Wonderful stuff. One waits eagerly to learn where Lethem will take us next." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Girl in Landscape is, really, a perfect little book innovative, intelligent, surprisingly moving (your heart will lurch a bit at passages you never saw coming), and utterly inventive, it also sheds new light on the loss of innocence and other sacrifices that come with becoming an adult. Whether or not you're a fan of Lethem's other work, this book should not be missed." Jill Owens, Powells.com (read the entire Powells.com review)
Synopsis
Anyone who wonders why Jonathan Lethem is the only novelist to be included among
Newsweek's "100 People for the New Century" need only read his deliriously original new book, a science fiction/Western that combines the tragic momentum of
The Searchers with the sexual tension of
Lolita.
At the age of 13, Pella Marsh emigrates with her family to the Planet of the Archbuilders. These enigmatic aborigines have names like Lonely Dumptruck and and Hiding Kneel and a civilization that baffles and frightens their human visitors.
As the spikily independent Pella becomes an uneasy envoy between two species, Girl in Landscape deftly interweaves themes of exploration and otherness, loss and sexual awakening.
Synopsis
Girl in Landscape is a daring exploration of the violent nature of sexual awakening, a meditation on language and perception, and an homage to the great American tradition of the Western.
- "Jonathan Lethem's imagination is]...marvelously fertile." --
Newsday The heroine is young Pella Marsh, whose mother dies just before her family flees a post-apocalyptic Brooklyn for the frontier of a recently discovered planet. Hating her ineffectual father, and troubled by a powerful attraction to a virile but dangerous loner who holds sway over the little colony, Pella sets out on a course of discovery that will have tragic and irrevocable consequences for the humans in the community and the ancient inhabitants, known only as archbuilders.
Girl in Landscape finds Jonathan Lethem twisting forms and literary conventions to create a dazzling, completely unconventional tale.
About the Author
Jonathan Lethem was born in New York and attended Bennington College. He is the author of the novels Gun, with Occasional Music; Amnesia Moon; and As She Climbed Across the Table; as well as a collection of short stories, The Wall of the Sky the Wall of the Eye. He currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Exclusive Essay
Read an exclusive essay by Jonathan Lethem