Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever? - Hardcover

Eggers, Dave

3.63

8,886 ratings by Goodreads

9780241146910: Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever?

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0241146917 ISBN 13: 9780241146910

Publisher: Hamish Hamilton, 2014

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Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever? is Dave Eggers' brilliantly executed story of one man struggling to make sense of the world. In a barracks on an abandoned military base, miles from the nearest road, Thomas watches as the man he has brought wakes up. Kev, a NASA astronaut, doesn't recognize his captor, though Thomas remembers him. Kev cries for help. He pulls at the chain. But the ocean is close by, and nobody can hear him over the waves and wind. Thomas apologizes. He didn't want to have to resort to this. But they really needed to have a conversation, and Kev didn't answer his messages. And now, if Kev can just stop yelling, Thomas has a few questions. "One of our fiercest and most compelling writers". (Sunday Times). "Eggers can write about pretty much anything and make it glitter and somersault on the page ...dazzling and highly original". (Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times). "Possibly the most admired and emulated American author of his generation". (Independent). Dave Eggers is the author of nine books, including most recently The Circle and A Hologram for the King, which was a finalist for the 2012 National Book Award. He is the founder of McSweeney's, an independent publishing company based in San Francisco that produces books, a quarterly journal of new writing (McSweeney's Quarterly Concern), and a monthly magazine, The Believer. McSweeney's also publishes Voice of Witness, a nonprofit book series that uses oral history to illuminate human rights crises around the world. Eggers is the co-founder of 826 National, a network of eight tutoring centers around the country and ScholarMatch, a nonprofit organization designed to connect students with resources, schools and donors to make college possible. He lives in Northern California with his family.

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Review:

One of our fiercest and most compelling writers (Sunday Times)

Eggers can write about pretty much anything and make it glitter and somersault on the page . . . dazzling and highly original (Michiko Kakutani The New York Times)

Possibly the most admired and emulated American author of his generation (Independent)

A jazz session - a brief, single helping of strangeness that flaunts his panache for stylistic experimentation. . . The writing is compelling and the characterization astute (Booklist)

Inherently interesting. I can think of few contemporary American writers who convey such a sense of urgency about the mess we're in. Eggers pulls no punches (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

A one-sitting read . . . insightful (USA Today)

One of the country's leading literary eminences (Washington Post)

Eggers writes so well you would read a computer manual if it was by him, but beneath his beguiling style is a base note of genuine concern about those who find themselves out of kilter with society. (HERALD)

His latest novella, Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever? stretches his toying with literary forms to new lengths...compelling (EVENING STANDARD)

But with each tightly controlled book, Eggers' fiction becomes more prescient, moving and unsettling... Even if all generations are lost generations, we need engaged, incendiary novels which ask: What now? (INDEPENDENT)

From the Back Cover:

'Alert, quick-witted and dogma-averse. Eggers works hard to surprise, challenge and confound. A writer on the best kind of roll' Daily Telegraph

'Does it feel weird to be chained to a post?'

In Building 52 at an abandoned military base miles from anywhere a NASA astronaut wakes to find he's been kidnapped. A man named Thomas says they know each other, but the astronaut doesn't remember him. Thomas insists he'll come to no harm - if he just answers a few questions. But when Thomas doesn't get the answers he's looking for he knows just what to do . . .

What has driven Thomas to this desperate act?
What is it he is trying to find or understand?
And how will it end?

'An angry and astute investigation into the state of America. Politically and polemically engaged in the tradition of Dickens and Zola' Guardian

'One of America's most creatively restless and socially reactive novelists' Metro

'Eggers can write about pretty much anything and make it glitter and somersault on the page . . . dazzling and highly original' Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

'Possibly the most admired and emulated American author of his generation' Independent

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