3.5
Halcyon
ByPublisher Description
A daring new novel, at once timely and timeless, set around an American family and the ever-shifting sands of history and memory and legacy that define them (“An expert juggling act.” —Stephen Markley, New York Times Book Review)
Martin Neumann, recently divorced, is living at Halcyon, the Virginia estate of renowned lawyer, family patriarch, and World War II hero Robert Ableson. It’s 2004, and Gore is entering his second term as president, when news breaks that scientists have discovered a cure for death. Suddenly, Martin is forced to question everything he thought he understood about the world around him. Who is Ableson, really? Why has Martin been drawn into the Ablesons’ most closely guarded family secrets? Is this new science a miraculous good or an insidious evil?
From pivotal elections to crumbling marriages, from the Civil War to the Battle of Saipan, Halcyon is a profound and probing novel that grapples with what history means, who is affected by it, and how the complexities of our shared future rest on the dual foundations of remembering and forgetting.
Martin Neumann, recently divorced, is living at Halcyon, the Virginia estate of renowned lawyer, family patriarch, and World War II hero Robert Ableson. It’s 2004, and Gore is entering his second term as president, when news breaks that scientists have discovered a cure for death. Suddenly, Martin is forced to question everything he thought he understood about the world around him. Who is Ableson, really? Why has Martin been drawn into the Ablesons’ most closely guarded family secrets? Is this new science a miraculous good or an insidious evil?
From pivotal elections to crumbling marriages, from the Civil War to the Battle of Saipan, Halcyon is a profound and probing novel that grapples with what history means, who is affected by it, and how the complexities of our shared future rest on the dual foundations of remembering and forgetting.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communities22 Reviews
3.5
Braden Scott
Created 2 months agoShare
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“A thought provoking novel that explores history and its place in the present and our shared future.”Ahasselwander
Created 5 months agoShare
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“The gimmicks of Halcyon (scientists figured out how to revive frozen people in the early 2000s, Gore beat Bush in 2000) are not the problem with this book. I was interested to see where the author would take them. His choice to set the book in the Virginia piedmont, surrounded by Civil War history, was interesting, too. Shelby Foote’s cameo was a highlight, that actually serves a real purpose. My issue was the heavy-handedness of the social justice being tied in with the potential for eternal life. Yes, death has a purpose—but one got the sense that Ackerman played it too safe with the implications out of fear of an audience backlash. There was so much more here—all of the characters should have been brasher, more profane, and frankly more violent. In the end, the book, while thought provoking, ended with a whimper.”Booksandblooms
Created 5 months agoShare
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“I loved the writing style although the story was a little odd - an alternative history where Gore has become president, cryoregeneration is a reality, but decried by the public and conservatives in particular (stem cell research anyone?) and Confederate monuments are on the chopping block.
All of the puzzle pieces made for a fascinating story, but I didn’t quite follow how they fit together or what point the author was trying to make.”
Camilo Olaya-Pineda
Created 9 months agoShare
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“a bit of a slow read but a great meditation on legacy, aging, and death itself. was also interesting to see how life and death compliment each other, and are sides of the same coin. one could not exist without the other. also good prose and writing.”
About Elliot Ackerman
ELLIOT ACKERMAN is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels Halcyon, 2034, Red Dress In Black and White, Waiting for Eden, Dark at the Crossing, and Green on Blue, as well as the memoir The Fifth Act: America’s End in Afghanistan, and Places and Names: On War, Revolution and Returning. His books have been nominated for the National Book Award, the Andrew Carnegie Medal in both fiction and nonfiction, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize among others. He is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and Marine veteran who served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor, and the Purple Heart. He divides his time between New York City and Washington, D.C.
Other books by Elliot Ackerman
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