Synopses & Reviews
Who will save the world?
In vividly compressed comic form, [email protected] takes the reader on a contemporary quest that is as cyberspatially and pharmaceutically fantastic as anything Ulysses encountered on his trek home from Troy. In a daring cross between Voltaire's Candide and Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, [email protected] follows the post-post modern exploits of our hero, WILL, a medicated college student on his heroic quest to uncover the truth behind a new virus that threatens to wipe-out all of humanity: IS (Information Sickness).
Helping him in his calling are a whole lot of psychotropic drugs; his faithful companion and always-handy, chatty laptop, Spunk®; and his virology lab partner and centerfold, wish-fulfillment fantasy ultra-babe, Naomi.
With all of contemporary existence muffled by feel-good medications, deconstructionist double-talk, fat free food, and a never-ending faith in the wisdom of the marketplace, who are you gonna call to save the world? Try: [email protected]!
Review
"Dystopian satire...that may well charm its way intravenously into the hearts of younger readers. Its sublime dialogue certainly will appeal to youths pondering the vacuity of modern life....The unwitting laughter [WILL] steadily evokes, page by page, makes Grimes a joyous dark humorist." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"[Grimes's work]...is so well written that you want there to be more: more pages, more unexpected allusions, more pleasing insights....One can only hope that there is more Tom Grimes in the offing." West Coast Review of Books
Review
"Funny, hip, sad, and very, very smart, this superbly written novel
tells a story with which all of us can identify in this age
of computers and information overload. This is truly an 'epic quest,'
an often hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking
search for peace and solace and ordinary human happiness."
Tim O'Brien, author of The Things They Carried
Review
"I'm happy to report that Tom Grimes has written another terrific book." Denis Johnson, author of Jesus' Son
Review
"A brilliant, funny, and ultimately moving book." Thom Jones, author of The Pugilist at Rest
Review
"Often, people think those who harp on Our Nation's vacuous, anti-intellectual consumer culture are depressing and that those who take Prozac, Lithium, Haldol, and Thorazine are simply watching too much TV in a never-made bed, alone all the time, staring numb at a computer screen. But if you really get into it, you might find that someone loaded up on these substances can become as all-powerful as WILL, Tom Grimes's action super-hero. This book is stupid funny, intravenously hilarious." Dagoberto Gilb, author of The Magic of Blood
Review
"At times meditative, at times funny and action-packed, Grimes's prose curves in an arc that traverses the distance from clear to piercing." Ann Beattie, author of Where You'll Find Me and Other Stories
Review
"Awfully good. Smart. Fast. Sensational, in fact." Joy Williams, author of Ill Nature: Rants and Reflections on Humanity and Other Animals
Review
"A remarkably substantial writer." Tom McGuane
Review
"Tom Grimes...calls to mind the writing of many of the bad boys of contemporary American literature Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas Pynchon, Ishmael Reed and T. C. Boyle." Reginal McKnight
Review
"Funny, smart, dreamy...brilliant, exact and surreal." Charles D'Ambrosio, author of The Point and Other Stories
Review
"Eerie and brilliant...Tom Grimes is our new visionary." Chris Offutt, author of The Good Brother and Out of the Woods
Synopsis
In a daring cross between Voltaire's
Candide and Stanley Kubrick's
Dr. Strangelove,
[email protected] follows the post-post modern exploits of our hero, WILL, a medicated college student on his heroic quest to uncover the truth behind a new virus that threatens to wipe out all of humanity: IS (Information Sickness).
About the Author
Tom Grimes is the author of the novels, A Stone of the Heart, Season's End, and City of God, the plays Spec and New World, and the fiction anthology The Workshop: Seven Decades from the Iowa Writers Workshop. His work has been named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, a New & Noteworthy Paperback, and an Editor's Choice pick; it has won three Los Angeles Dramalogue Awards, been awarded a James Michener Fellowship, and has been selected for the Barnes & Noble Discover series. He now directs the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Southwest Texas State University. His favorite novels include The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon, White Noise by Don DeLillo, Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, and The Castle by Franz Kafka.