Synopses & Reviews
An innovative story of love, decapitation, cryogenics, and memory by two of our most creative literary minds
The New World is the story of a marriage. Dr. Jane Cotton is a
pediatric surgeon; her husband, Jim, is a humanist chaplain. They are
about to celebrate their eighth wedding anniversary when Jim suddenly
collapses and dies. When Jane arrives at the hospital, she is horrified
to find that her husband's head has been removed from his body. Only
then does she discover that he secretly enrolled with a shadowy
cryogenics company called Polaris.
Furious and grieving, Jane fights
to reclaim Jim from Polaris. Revived in the future, Jim learns that he
must sacrifice every memory of Jane if he wants to stay alive in the new
world. Separated by centuries, each of them is challenged to choose
between love and fear, intimacy and solitude, life and grief, and each
will find an answer to the challenge that is surprising, harrowing, and
ultimately beautiful.
Review
“I literally couldn't be a bigger fan of Chris Adrian's uniquely compassionate and wildly inventive voice. In The New World,
Adrian pairs with Eli Horowitz to create a cryogenically intimate
meditation on life and loss, and what it might mean to live forever.” Nathan Englander, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank
Review
"Jane and Jim have such basic human desires-they want to live, they want to be good-and The New World
tracks how these basic pursuits can so quickly turn absurd, sad, and
unforeseeably strange. It's a wild and fun book, yes, and also a
precipitously imaginative and intelligent one. But maybe most
importantly, its humor is profound and seems to come from the heart of
an angel.” Rivka Galchen, author of American Innovations
Review
“Even to describe this book feels like blasphemy but I promise you'll
exit agog, overjoyed, transformed.” Karen Russell, author of
Swamplandia! and Sleep Donation
About the Author
Chris Adrian is the author of The Great Night, Gob's Grief, The Children's Hospital, and A Better Angel. Selected by The New Yorker as one of its 20 Under 40, he lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Eli Horowitz was the managing editor and then publisher of McSweeney's for eight years. The author of The Silent History, he is also the coauthor of The Clock Without a Face, a treasure-hunt mystery, and Everything You Know Is Pong, an illustrated cultural history of Ping-Pong, and his design work has been honored by I.D., Print, and the American Institute of Graphic Arts. He lives in San Francisco.