Synopses & Reviews
Critics have compared him to Martin Amis, Zadie Smith, Tom Wolfe, and Don DeLillo.
Granta dubbed him one of the twenty best fiction writers under forty. Now Hari Kunzru delivers his finest novel yet... bringing to the angry activism of the young in the late sixties all the suspense of a spy thriller." (Lisa Appignanesi, author of
Unholy Loves)
Chris Carver is living a lie. His wife, their teenage daughter, and everyone in their circle know him as Michael Frame, suburban dad. They have no idea that as a radical student in the sixties he briefly became a terrorist, protesting the Vietnam War by setting bombs around London. And then one day a ghost from his past turns up on his doorstep, forcing Chris on the run.
As Chris flees, he remembers his days as an isolated youth, hopelessly in love with Anna Addison, following her as she threw aside conventionality. Chris's rival for Anna's affections, the charismatic Sean Ward, was the leader of the radical August 14th Group. Egging one another on, the three inched closer and closer to the edge, until the events of one horrifying night forced them apart, never to see one another again.
Gripping, moving, provocative, and passionate, My Revolutions brings to brilliant life both the radical idealism of the sixties and the darker currents that ran beneath it, the eddies of which still shape our history today.
Review
"Captures the muddled idealism of the young and its easy perversion into violence... and offers some clues to a better understanding of terrorism today. It's a daringly ambitious thing for a writer to attempt, but he pulls it off for a thrilling and moving read." Daily Mail
Review
"An urgent and passionate piece of work... fairly afire with an anger on behalf of the world's dispossessed and powerless that is so conspicuously absent from much cozy and collusive current fiction." The Sunday Telegraph (UK)
Review
"A sharp reminder, as sharp as tomorrow's headlines, of how the past will insist on haunting the present. Hari Kunzru writes a clear, clean, elegant prose, and his presentation of political realities is worryingly real." John Banville
Review
"Hari Kunzru's My Revolutions is the book I'm telling people to grab. Kunzru is burning up in this novel. He spins a superb tale and his narrator's plummet down the radical rabbit-hole had me from page one." Junot Diaz, the National Book Critics Circle's Most Recommended list, winter 2008
Review
"[A]n extraordinary autumnal depiction of a failed '60s radical....It is a measure of how respectfully Kunzru treats his characters' yearning for a more generous time that My Revolutions feels less like an elegy for their era and more like a requiem for our own." New York Times
Review
"[An] inquiry into the metaphysics of rebellion, a novel that frames radicalism as a spiritual path." Los Angeles Times
Synopsis
?Powerful? (The New Yorker), ?extraordinary? (The New York Times Book Review), and ?brilliant? (Entertainment Weekly)?you won?t be able to put down this new novel by the award-winning bestselling author of The Impressionist Critics have compared him to Martin Amis, Zadie Smith, Tom Wolfe, and Don DeLillo. Granta dubbed him ?one of the twenty best fiction writers under forty.? Now Hari Kunzru delivers his best novel yet.
Chris Carver is living a lie. His wife, their teenage daughter, and everyone in their circle know him as Michael Frame, suburban dad. They have no idea that as a radical student during the sixties he briefly became a terrorist? protesting the Vietnam War by setting off bombs. Until one day a ghost from his past turns up on his doorstep, forcing Chris on the run.
About the Author
Hari Kunzru is the author of The Impressionist, Transmission, and the short story collection Noise. He was named one of Granta's "Twenty Best Fiction Writers Under Forty." The Impressionist was a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist; was shortlisted for The Guardian First Book Award, the Whitbread First Novel Award, and a British Book Award; and was one of Publishers Weekly's Best Novels of 2002. Kunzru is a contributing editor of Mute magazine and sits on the executive council of English PEN . He has written for a variety of international publications, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The London Review of Books, and Wired.