Synopses & Reviews
A bold, arresting new work of fiction from the acclaimed author of Everything Matters! In this tour de force of imagination, Ron Currie asks why literal veracity means more to us than deeper truths, creating yet again a genre-bending novel that will at once dazzle, move, and provoke.
The protagonist of Ron Currie, Jr.’s new novel has a problem—or rather, several of them. He’s a writer whose latest book was destroyed in a fire. He’s mourning the death of his father, and has been in love with the same woman since grade school, a woman whose beauty and allure is matched only by her talent for eluding him. Worst of all, he’s not even his own man, but rather an amalgam of fact and fiction from Ron Currie’s own life. When Currie the character exiles himself to a small Caribbean island to write a new book about the woman he loves, he eventually decides to fake his death, which turns out to be the best career move he’s ever made. But fame and fortune come with a price, and Currie learns that in a time of twenty-four-hour news cycles, reality TV, and celebrity Twitter feeds, the one thing the world will not forgive is having been told a deeply satisfying lie.
What kind of distinction could, or should, be drawn between Currie the author and Currie the character? Or between the book you hold in your hands and the novel embedded in it? Whatever the answers, Currie, an inventive writer always eager to test the boundaries of storytelling in provocative ways, has essential things to impart along the way about heartbreak, reality, grief, deceit, human frailty, and blinding love.
Review
"Currie's strength rests in his ability to focus humanity's conundrums on the smallest physical particles." Los Angeles Times
Review
"[A] brilliant novel, a taut tale that captures the importance of faith in our lives." St. Petersburg Times
Synopsis
From a mind-blowing new talent, an audacious novel that imagines the world after God takes human form and dies.
When God descends to Earth as a Dinka woman from Sudan and subsequently dies in the Darfur desert, the result is a world both bizarrely new yet eerily familiar. In Ron Currie's provocative, wise, and emotionally resonant novel we meet God himself; the Dinka woman whose mortality He must suffer when He inhabits her body; people all over the world coping with the devastating news of God's demise; a group of young men who, fearing the end of the world, take fate into their own hands; mental patients who insist that a god still exists; armies taking up the eternal war between fate and free will; and parents who, in the absence of a deity and the "lack of anything to do on Sundays," worship their children. On the surface, this is a world utterly transformed yet certain things remain unchanged: protective parents clash with willful, idealistic teenagers; idols are exalted; small-town rumor mills run unabated; and children often don't realize how to forgive their parents until it's too late.
In God Is Dead, Currie brings together a prescient satirical gift worthy of Jonathan Swift, the raw appeal of Chuck Palahniuk's blackest comedy, and the thought-provoking ethical questions of Kurt Vonnegut, all with a light touch, empathy, and wisdom that make for an exhilarating reading experience. Offbeat yet accessible, God Is Dead is an exciting debut from a fresh new voice in contemporary fiction.
Synopsis
An electrifying debut from a provocative new voice in fiction that will remind readers of the best of Vonnegut Ron Currie’s gutsy, funny book is instantly gripping: If God takes human form and dies, what would become of life as we know it? Effortlessly combining outlandish humor with big questions about mortality, ethics, and human weakness, Ron Currie, Jr., holds a funhouse mirror to our present-day world. God has inhabited the mortal body of a young Dinka woman in the Sudan. When she is killed in the Darfur desert, he dies along with her, and word of his death soon begins to spread. Faced with the hard proof that there is no supreme being in charge, the world is irrevocably transformed, yet remains oddly recognizable.
Synopsis
A bold and arresting story about the impossibility of love and the inevitability of grief by the acclaimed author of Everything Matters! Ron Currie, Jr.s first two works of fiction, God Is Dead and Everything Matters!, dazzled readers and critics alike with their audacity, originality, and psychological insight. Hailed by the New York Timess Janet Maslin as a startlingly talented writer,” Currie once again moves and provokes us with his latest genre-bending novel, one that asks why literal veracity means more to us than deeper truths.
The protagonist of Flimsy Little Plastic Miracles is named Ron Currie, Jr., and as youd expect, hes a lot like the guy who wrote the book. Both of them are writers; both of their fathers are dead; both are deeply in love with women whose beauty and allure are matched only by their elusiveness. When Currie the character travels to a small Caribbean island to begin a new book about the woman he loves, he inadvertently fakes his own death, which turns out to be the best career move hes ever madeuntil he learns that the one thing that the world will not forgive is having been told a deeply satisfying lie.
About the Author
Ron Currie, Jr., is the winner of the 2009 Addison M. Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters as well as the New York Public Library Young Lion’s Award for his acclaimed debut,
God Is Dead. His 2009 novel,
Everything Matters!, was an Indie Next Pick and one of Amazon’s 100 Top Books of 2009 and was named by the
Los Angeles Times as among the Best Fiction of 2009. He lives in Waterville, Maine.