Synopses & Reviews
At the turn of the eighteenth century, John Morehead Tripoli is marooned on the unspoiled Caribbean island of St. Renard. There, he lives for an idyllic year in a community of Carawak Indians. Three hundred years later, the Carawak are gone, St. Renard is carpeted with banana plantations and sugarcane fields, and Tripoli himself is remembered only through his grandson, founder of New Hampshires Tripoli College, which maintains a branch campus on the island. The college, never prosperous, has been forced to enter into a coercive financial relationship with snack food giant Big Anna® Brands, the same corporation that controls most of the land on St. Renard. Big Anna® deposes the college president, uses students and faculty as test subjects for a “dietary and mood additive”called Malpraxalin ®, and hijacks the St. Renard campus for a “field studies” program. At the heart of this twisted satire are two souls in transition. Bill Brees is a grandfatherly dean, “undercover” as a Tripoli freshman, and bemused by how things have changed since his undergrad days. Maggie Bell is an African-American student, startled into the realization that nothing really changes at all. When these unlikely friends both elect to spend their spring semesters in the Caribbean, they will see a side of Big Anna® even uglier than they could have imagined. Brilliant and hilarious, The Ghost Apple unfolds through a varied and colorful collection of "primary sources," introducing not just one, but multiple delightful new voices in literature.
Review
"Loopy course descriptions, the minutiae of faculty meetings, blurbs from the school newspaper, et al., create a delicious texture and form the structure of the book . . . A droll comedy of modern manners, incisive without being angry, this satire within satire within satire will delight the right audience." —
Publishers Weekly,
starred review
"An improbable laugh riot." —Kirkus Reviews, starred review
"Through an insanely fun mixture of pseudo-historical letters, blog posts, emails, newsletters, advertisements, and even course listings, Thier takes readers on a dark tour of life at Tripoli College. [A] raucous adventure." —Booklist
"Antic, darkly funny, and - like all the best satire - deadly serious beneath its surface, this unusually inventive debut reads like a classic campus novel shredded, set on fire, and rebuilt by Jonathan Swift." —Andrea Barrett, author of Archangel "A meditation on globalization, higher education, slavery, disease, and the addictive effects of all-you-can-eat pudding, this novel is at once lyrical and satirical, formally inventive and steeped in tradition, It is the sort of book that makes you laugh only until you realize how sharp its bite is." —David Leavitt "Had Donald Barthelme written Absalom, Absalom!, this is it." —Padgett Powell "This is a damn good novel. It's patient, weird, fun and, most of all, smart. It had me from the first line." —Percival Everett, author of I Am Not Sidney Poitier and Percival Everett by Virgil Russell "As deadpan as Donald Bathelme's best work and as antic as John Barth's, The Ghost Apple provides further compelling evidence, for those who still need it, about the ways in which our most cherished and trusted institutions always manage to facilitate the process of sending our world to hell in a hand basket. Aaron Thier is a smart and funny and passionate new voice." —Jim Shepard, author of National Book Award finalist Like You'd Understand, Anyway
Synopsis
A blistering debut novel by a writer brilliantly inhabiting a panoply of voices to satirize both the indignities of modern life and the darker forces that bubble beneath.
Synopsis
"Every college I looked at, the students were like, ‘Whoa, this place is awesome! Then I came to Tripoli and everyone was like, ‘I dont know. You get used to it. Its not so bad. So I thought I might as well come here." —Adam Longman, Class of 2011
Tripoli College is a humble New England institution. Originally founded as a free school for Native Americans, it is now beset by financial problems and so has entered into an increasingly troubling financial relationship with a snack food corporation. Big Anna® deposes the college president, uses the campus as a testing ground for their latest “dietary and mood additive,” and creates a field studies program in the Caribbean, where students in the (literal) field soon learn the true price of their Human Power Technology practices.
Set amidst this madness is a quasi love story, between Bill Brees, a dean going undercover as a student, utterly bemused by how things have changed since his undergrad days, and Maggie, an African American student startled into the realization that maybe nothing changes at all.
The Ghost Apple is told through a wealth of documents: tourism pamphlets, course catalogs, blog posts, historical letters, and slave narratives. Slowly, they reveal the extent of Tripoli's current crisis, and highlight those larger crises—of genocide, slavery, ignorance and indifference —on which the college and the nation were founded . . . and on which we continue to subsist.
Synopsis
"Every college I looked at, the students were like, ‘Whoa, this place is awesome! Then I came to Tripoli and everyone was like, ‘I dont know. You get used to it. Its not so bad. So I thought I might as well come here." —Adam Longman, Class of 2011
Tripoli College is a humble New England institution. Originally founded as a free school for Native Americans, it is now beset by financial problems and so has entered into an increasingly troubling financial relationship with a snack food corporation. Big Anna® deposes the college president, uses the campus as a testing ground for their latest “dietary and mood additive,” and creates a field studies program in the Caribbean, where students in the (literal) field soon learn the true price of their Human Power Technology practices.
Set amidst this madness is a quasi love story, between Bill Brees, a dean going undercover as a student, utterly bemused by how things have changed since his undergrad days, and Maggie, an African American student startled into the realization that maybe nothing changes at all.
The Ghost Apple is told through a wealth of documents: tourism pamphlets, course catalogs, blog posts, historical letters, and slave narratives. Slowly, they reveal the extent of Tripoli's current crisis, and highlight those larger crises—of genocide, slavery, ignorance and indifference —on which the college and the nation were founded . . . and on which we continue to subsist.
Synopsis
"Insanely fun . . . Thier takes readers on . . . [a] raucous adventure." —Booklist
About the Author
Aaron Thier was born in Baltimore and raised in Williamstown, Massachusetts, where he now lives with his wife. His writing has appeared in The Nation and The New Republic, among other places. This is his first novel. www.aaron-thier.com