A branching and multi-layered novel by one of the most acclaimed young writers that centers on a couple searching for their young son, lost in the brutal, strangely powerful landscape of the Mojave Desert.
Jaz and Lisa Matharu, a young couple from New York City, are plunged into a surreal public hell after their autistic son, Raj, disappears during a vacation to the California desert. But the desert is inexplicable and miraculous, and the fates of the Matharus are bound up with those of others, all converging at an odd, remote town near a rock formation called The Pinnacles; among them are a debauched British rock star, a former member of an extraterrestrial-worshipping cult, and a teenage Iraqi refugee who befriends a young black Marine while playing the role of "Iraqi villager" in a military simulation exercise. Viscerally gripping and intellectually engaging, this is a novel of big ideas, grounded in emotion and centered on flesh-and-blood characters, and a heartfelt exploration of the search for pattern and meaning in a chaotic universe.
About the Author
Hari Kunzru is the author of the novels The Impressionist, Transmission, and My Revolutions, and the recipient of the Somerset Maugham Award, the Betty Trask Prize of the Society of Authors, and a British Book Award. In 2003 Granta named him one of its twenty best young British novelists. He is deputy president of English PEN, a patron of the Refugee Council, and a member of the editorial board of Mute magazine. His work has been translated into twenty-one languages, and his short stories and journalism have appeared in diverse publications including The New York Times, The Guardian, The New Yorker, The London Review of Books, Wired, and The New Statesman.
