3.0
Something New Under the Sun
By Alexandra KleemanPublisher Description
NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • A novelist discovers the dark side of Hollywood and reckons with ambition, corruption, and environmental collapse in “a darkly satirical reflection of ecological reality” (Time)
LONGLISTED FOR THE JOYCE CAROL OATES PRIZE • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, Time, Los Angeles Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Vulture, Thrillist, Literary Hub
“An urgent novel about our very near future, and a deeply addictive pleasure.”—Katie Kitamura, author of Intimacies
Novelist Patrick Hamlin has come to Los Angeles to oversee the film adaptation of one of his books and try to impress his wife and daughter back home with this last-ditch attempt at professional success. But California is not as he imagined. Drought, wildfire, and corporate corruption are everywhere, and the company behind a mysterious new brand of synthetic water seems to be at the root of it all. Patrick finds an unlikely partner in Cassidy Carter—the cynical starlet of his film—and the two investigate the sun-scorched city, where they discover the darker side of all that glitters in Hollywood.
Something New Under the Sun is an unmissable novel for our present moment—a bold exploration of environmental catastrophe in the age of alternative facts, and “a ghost story not of the past but of the near future” (The New York Times).
LONGLISTED FOR THE JOYCE CAROL OATES PRIZE • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, Time, Los Angeles Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Vulture, Thrillist, Literary Hub
“An urgent novel about our very near future, and a deeply addictive pleasure.”—Katie Kitamura, author of Intimacies
Novelist Patrick Hamlin has come to Los Angeles to oversee the film adaptation of one of his books and try to impress his wife and daughter back home with this last-ditch attempt at professional success. But California is not as he imagined. Drought, wildfire, and corporate corruption are everywhere, and the company behind a mysterious new brand of synthetic water seems to be at the root of it all. Patrick finds an unlikely partner in Cassidy Carter—the cynical starlet of his film—and the two investigate the sun-scorched city, where they discover the darker side of all that glitters in Hollywood.
Something New Under the Sun is an unmissable novel for our present moment—a bold exploration of environmental catastrophe in the age of alternative facts, and “a ghost story not of the past but of the near future” (The New York Times).
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communities46 Reviews
3.0
Vykodlak
Created 5 months agoShare
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Beautifully writtenDescriptive writingAddictiveSuspensefulDark settingDarkThought-provoking
Gabs
Created 6 months agoShare
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Łëîşēľ
Created 6 months agoShare
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Original writingDark settingImmersive settingThought-provokingUnsatisfying endingUnsatisfying plot
adeline
Created 7 months agoShare
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“4.25
Dystopian ecological mystery drenched in a Neo Noir atmosphere and set in Los Angeles, it follows a writer, Patrick who travels to Hollywood for the movie adaptation of his novel. While California is invaded by a new trendy water brand and ravaged by wildfires, Patrick encounters the secretive and weird producers, a set full of amateurs and the main actress, a troubled starlet named Cassidy.
I liked the dense, lush literary prose which read like a fever dream. The novel was written in a 3rd PoV where the characters thoughts and memories were shared but at random times which threw me off at first. I felt some monologues and descriptions could have been trimmed down because they were distracting and didn’t add anything substantial to the plot. Some characters felt superfluous. Maybe I would have preferred a more focused look on the mystery itself, and felt the ending could have been tighter especially concerning the effect of the fake water.
I did like the mystery in itself, the dread atmosphere, the weird and the strange behaviours , the present tangible threat of wildfires vs the ominous water brand that creeps into the everyday life. It’s like you realise bit by bit that something is not quite right in that world. I did like how one of Cassidy’s old tv show is used as a parallel to the mystery going in the book.
A good book despite some pacing problems for me.”
Natalie
Created 8 months agoShare
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About Alexandra Kleeman
Alexandra Kleeman is the author of Intimations, a short story collection, and the novel You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine, which was a New York Times Editor’s Choice. Her fiction has been published in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Zoetrope, Conjunctions, and Guernica, among other publications, and her other writing has appeared in Harper’s, The New York Times Magazine, Vogue, Tin House, n+1, and The Guardian. Her work has received fellowships and support from Bread Loaf, the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Headlands Center for the Arts. She is the winner of the Berlin Prize and the Bard Fiction Prize, and was a Rome Prize Literature Fellow at the American Academy in Rome. She lives in Staten Island and teaches at the New School.
Other books by Alexandra Kleeman
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