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Title details for Something New Under the Sun by Alexandra Kleeman - Available

Something New Under the Sun

A Novel

by Alexandra Kleeman
Marin Ireland
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
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).

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    August 3, 2021

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780593410561
      • File size: 323272 KB
      • Duration: 11:13:28

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      June 7, 2021
      Kleeman’s ranging and ambitious latest (after Intimations) imagines a climate-ravaged near-future California. Novelist Patrick Hamlin has just arrived in Los Angeles to assist with the adaptation of his melancholy novel Elsinore Lane, based on his father’s death. Hollywood calculations, though, quickly distort the story beyond recognition. Worse, the producers have cast in the leading role unpredictable former child star Cassidy Carter, whose career is on the downturn. Even worse yet, Patrick is made a production assistant and tasked with chauffeuring the unpredictable Cassidy to and from set. Meanwhile, Patrick’s wife, Alison, who previously suffered a breakdown, takes her daughter to an Upstate New York eco-retreat; California has recently converted to using WAT-R, a synthetic water product; and green vans make rounds to pick up sufferers of a mysterious new dementia. Cassidy and Patrick are then drawn in by conspiracy theories involving a supposed link between WAT-R and Cassidy’s old show, Kassi Keene: Kid Detective, and Patrick streams episodes looking for clues. While a few plot twists are telegraphed, the action is propulsive and entertaining even as the horrors of climate change smolder around every corner. Readers will be captivated by this intelligent, rip-roaring story. Agent: Claudia Ballard, William Morris Endeavor.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Narrator Marin Ireland has a gift for mimicry. She invests each character with a tone, inflection, and pace that establish their identity. Her Valley girls sound vapid and her stoners stoned, but each has slightly different gradations. Hollywood power types, the essence of corruption, are voiced expertly as greedy and affectless. In the darkening landscape of this dystopian novel, California has reached its end. Environmental collapse arrives in the form of man-made water--called Wat-R--which causes random-onset dementia. The plot is divided between California, where a novelist goes to work on the movie version of his book, and upstate New York, where his wife, an environmental activist, and precocious daughter join an end-of-nature commune. The writing is richly detailed and the story vividly imagined. The narration sings. A.D.M. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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