author : Matt Ruff

How to describe this book?

Let's try a plot summary. Hmm. It's 2023. Acrophobic Harry Gant builds record-breaking mile-high skyscrapers in New York. His crusading ex-wife Joan teams up with a holographic Ayn Rand to prevent a new global disaster, helped by Kite, a one-armed veteran of the US Civil War, but hindered by Meisterbrau, a mutant great white shark living in the New York Sewers. Meanwhile pacifist eco-pirate Philo Dufresne pilots his pink polka-dotted submarine Yabba-Dabba-Do on a quest to save the last ring-tailed lemurs, with a surprising intervention by the Queen of England. And all these threads, and more, turn out to be linked.

That captures only some of the inspired lunacy. For roughly the first two thirds of the book, very little seems to actually happen. Lots of delicious seemingly unconnected little vignettes, flash-backs, and random events are presented for our delight. The lack of perceived action isn't a problem, because the individual clips are so gorgeous. But then Ruff tosses in a lit match, and the whole carefully crafted confection goes "whoosh", with non-stop action as the threads come together.

It's surreal, it's clever, it's thought provoking, it's inventive, it's funny. It's wonderful. Read it.