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In Jordan Castro's provocative debut novel, the seemingly mundane routines and events of a single, ordinary morning are magnified into complex, hilarious, and profound statements on the modern condition.
"Instagram Stories liberated one from the pressure of eternity," thinks the unnamed narrator of The Novelist: A Novel, as he sits on the toilet, scrolling through his phone.
In Jordan Castro's inventive, funny, and surprisingly tender first novel, we follow a young man over the course of a single morning as he fails to write an autobiographical novel based on his own heroin addiction and recovery, finding himself drawn into the infinite spaces of Twitter, quotidian rituals, and his own mind.
An ode to the narrator's favorite coffee mug also explores materialism and subjectivity, a misguided visit to an old classmate's Facebook page prompts a meditation on class privilege, an Instagram post about the ethics of having children leads to a condemnation of nihilism, the act of doing the dishes is at once quotidian and profound: one of the many small commitments that make up a life of stability.
The Novelist: A Novel is influenced by and references Nicholson Baker's The Mezzanine and Thomas Bernhard's Woodcutters, and in the end is a wholly original novel about language and consciousness, the internet and social media, and addiction and recovery.
"Instagram Stories liberated one from the pressure of eternity," thinks the unnamed narrator of The Novelist: A Novel, as he sits on the toilet, scrolling through his phone.
In Jordan Castro's inventive, funny, and surprisingly tender first novel, we follow a young man over the course of a single morning as he fails to write an autobiographical novel based on his own heroin addiction and recovery, finding himself drawn into the infinite spaces of Twitter, quotidian rituals, and his own mind.
An ode to the narrator's favorite coffee mug also explores materialism and subjectivity, a misguided visit to an old classmate's Facebook page prompts a meditation on class privilege, an Instagram post about the ethics of having children leads to a condemnation of nihilism, the act of doing the dishes is at once quotidian and profound: one of the many small commitments that make up a life of stability.
The Novelist: A Novel is influenced by and references Nicholson Baker's The Mezzanine and Thomas Bernhard's Woodcutters, and in the end is a wholly original novel about language and consciousness, the internet and social media, and addiction and recovery.
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