334: A Novel - Softcover

Disch, Thomas M.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0375705449 ISBN 13: 9780375705441

Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 1999

Synopsis

Number 334, the city street address of a place in which time pivots forward and backward, becomes the setting for a unique odyssey through human history. Reprint. 12,500 first printing.

About this title

Review:

The stories in 334 revolve loosely around a government housing project at 334 East 11th Street in New York City in the 2020s. The project's inhabitants are universally poor, often jobless, sometimes squalid. Some are happy, others angry, depressed, or just numb. The stories study their hopes and disappointments, and all are deeply introspective.

The early 21st-century setting might, in the hands of another author, be only a guise, a shortcut to making a world that's more gritty, shabby, and used up than ours. But Disch's future is thoroughly imagined, and he's adept at dropping in details of his characters' lives that are commonplace to them but jarring to us. It might be something as simple as going to the kitchen to "mix up a glass of milk." Occasionally it's radical, as in the case of Millie, who wants to have a baby but also keep her career. The answer? The child is gestated in an artificial womb and Millie's husband gets mammary implants.

Though American, Disch is closely associated with the UK's New Wave movement, and these stories reflect the New Wave emphasis on character above ideas. He's also a well-known poet, and in 334 you'll find some of the most lyrical science fiction written. --Brooks Peck

About the Author:

Thomas M. Disch is the author of many novels, including such classic works of science fiction as Camp Concentration and 334. He lives in Manhattan and in Sullivan County, New York.

About this edition

• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0375705449
• ISBN 13: 9780375705441
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272