Synopses & Reviews
Aidan Cole and his friends are a band of savvy — if cynical — New York journalists and bloggers, thriving at the intersection of media and celebrity. They meet at loft parties and dive bars, talking of scoops and page views, sexual adventures and new restaurants. And then, without warning, a bomb rips through a deserted midtown office tower, and Aidans life will never be the same.
Four days later, with no arrests and a city on edge, an anonymous e-mail arrives in Aidans inbox. Attached is the photograph of an attractive young white woman, along with a chilling message: “This is Paige Roderick. Shes the one responsible.”
An astonishing debut novel, American Subversive is a “genuinely thrilling thriller” (NewYorker.com) as well as “an exploration of what motivates radicalism in an age of disillusion” (The New York Times Book Review).
Review
"American Subversive reads like the unholy spawn of Tom Wolfe and F. Scott Fitzgerald. It has all the white-knuckle pleasures of the political thriller--combined with a thoroughly postmodern love story. He has an insider's feel for New York's too-knowing new-media culture, and a writer's eye for its emptiness." -- David Gates, author of Jernigan
Review
"David Goodwillie is an exceptional and fine young talent. He can write. In American Subversive you will find him witty and ironic, funny, fast and sharp." -- Alan Furst, author of The Spies of Warsaw
Review
"No one could accuse David Goodwillie of playing it safe in his first novel... The book moves like a potboiler... Sequel, please?"--VanityFair.com
Review
?“The novel is thoughtful and dead-on in its presentation of our post-recession, digitally obsessed, self-centered and seemingly morally bankrupt culture.”—Carol Memmott, USA Today
Review
“Boasting literary antecedents ranging from F. Scott Fitzgerald to Tom Wolfe to Jay McInerney, Goodwillie offers a remarkable tale of one man's search for meaning and purpose beyond the superficialities of contemporary urban life.”—Library Journal
Review
“[A] hip and quick-paced literary thriller . . . ?Goodwillie excels at jet-black social satire in a style reminiscent of Bret Easton Ellis. . . In Aidan’s voice, he has written a scathing and hilarious indictment of our bizarre moment in time.”—Malena Watrous, New York Times Book Review
Review
“Definite beach-reading recommendation… A genuinely thrilling thriller.”—NewYorker.com
Review
“A triumphant work of fiction.”Associated Press “A rare novel that gets the moment even as we’re living it… A fast-paced, engaging novel of pop-culture and big ideas, authentically subversive, and thoroughly American.”The Daily Beast “[A] smart, edgy, suspenseful first novel… Goodwillie evokes life underground like a master--the tradecraft, the fraught group dynamics, the combination of discipline and paranoia, the longing for normality.”Kirkus
Review
“A triumphant work of fiction.”—Associated Press
Review
“A rare novel that gets the moment even as we’re living it… A fast-paced, engaging novel of pop-culture and big ideas, authentically subversive, and thoroughly American.”—The Daily Beast
Review
“[A] smart, edgy, suspenseful first novel… Goodwillie evokes life underground like a master--the tradecraft, the fraught group dynamics, the combination of discipline and paranoia, the longing for normality.”—Kirkus
Synopsis
In David Goodwillie's "powerful thriller" (Chicago Sun-Times), the lives of a young radical and a failed journalist intertwine after a bombing.
About the Author
David Goodwillie is the author of the novel American Subversive, a New York Times Notable Book of 2010, and the acclaimed memoir Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time. He has also played professional baseball, worked as a private investigator, and was an expert at Sotheby's auction house. A graduate of Kenyon College, he lives in New York City.