Alex Shakar

This Los Angeles Times Book Prize–winning novel is a “dizzyingly smart and provocative” look at technology, spirituality, and the search for meaning (Dave Eggers). A Washington Post Notable Book of the Year Named a Best Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Austin Chronicle, and Kansas City Star Twin brothers Fred and George Brounian were once co-CEOs of a New York City software company devoted to the creation of utopian virtual worlds. Now, as two wars rage and the fifth anniversary of 9/11 approaches, George is in a coma; control of the company has been wrenched away by a military contracting conglomerate; and Fred has moved back in with his parents. Broke and alone, Fred is led by an attractive woman into a neurological study promising to give him “peak” experiences and a newfound spiritual outlook on life. But as the study progresses, reality becomes increasingly porous—and he finds himself caught up in what seems at first a cruel prank: a series of bizarre emails and texts that purport to be from his comatose brother. Moving between the research hospitals of Manhattan, the streets of a meticulously planned Florida city, the neighborhoods of Brooklyn, and the uncanny, immersive worlds of urban disaster simulation; threading through military listserv geek-speak, Hindu cosmology, outmoded self-help books and the latest neuroscientific breakthroughs, Luminarium is a brilliant examination of the way we live now, a novel as much about the role technology and spirituality play in shaping our reality as about the undying bond between brothers, and the redemptive possibilities of love.

A Novel

Luminarium

a novel

The Savage Girl

What is the next trend -- the next "killer app"? This question is very much on the mind of Ursula Van Urden, a burned-out art student who, after her supermodel sister Ivy's widely publicized suicide attempt, has found work as a trendspotter for Tomorrow, Ltd., in the volcano-shadowed metropolis of Middle City. Armed with only a sketch pad and a mandate to "find the future," Ursula discovers a homeless girl who hunts her own food and lives on the street. This "savage girl" becomes Ursula's first trend and the basis for an advertising scheme that goes madly, disastrously awry. An exceptionally written novel that puts an obsession with pop culture under the microscope, The Savage Girl is a book that cannot be ignored, and Alex Shakar is a writer brimming with talent.

George Wilson

Ex-art student Ursula Van Urden's new job is to spot trends for Tomorrow, Ltd. Her instructions are simple: go out and "find the future," or whatever may be trend worthy. But what Ursula discovers is quite unexpected: a homeless girl who panhandles and lives on the street. Dubbed "the savage girl," she becomes the impetus for a bizarre advertising scheme. That is, until things go terribly, terribly wrong.

In New York City, strange characters-- a museum guard who inscribes a secret message into the streets of Manhattan, a Queens schoolgirl turned superhero, and an Alphabet City sculptor who constructs his ideal woman--mount a passionate struggle to belong and to survive in the vast, dangerous, and seductive city. Reprint.

The New York Metamorphoses

City in Love

In New York City in the year 1 B.C., strange characters mount a passionate struggle to belong and to survive in the vast, dangerous, and seductive city

In the wake of her sister Ivy's widely publicized suicide attempt, Ursula Van Urden arrives in the metropolis of Middle City with hopes of starting her own life anew. In an attempt to understand the events leading up to her sister's breakdown, Ursula meets Ivy's mysterious boyfriend, Chas Lacouture, and joins his trendspotting firm, Tomorrow, Ltd. Armed with only a sketch pad and the mandate to "find the future," she begins an odyssey into the strangely intoxicating world of trendspotting where one lesson prevails: At the heart of every product lies a paradox, and when cultivated successfully, it yields untold riches. As Ivy's delusions grow stronger and more apocalyptic, Ursula's observations of a filthy, rodent-eating homeless girl -- an urban savage -- lead to an elaborate advertising scheme gone awry that has unexpected consequences.

Alex Shakar

About

Books

Join the club