Strange Bodies - Softcover

Theroux, Marcel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 144343051X ISBN 13: 9781443430517

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers, 2014

Synopsis

It started when Nicky Slopen came back from the dead . . .

Nicholas Slopen has been dead for months. So when a man claiming to be Nicholas turns up to visit an old girlfriend, deception seems the only possible motive, yet nothing can make him change his story.

From the secure unit of a notorious psychiatric hospital, he begins to tell his tale: an account of attempted forgery that draws the reader towards an extraordinary truth—a metaphysical conspiracy that lies on the other side of madness and death.

Strange Bodies takes the reader on a dizzying speculative journey that poses questions about identity, authenticity and what it means to be truly human.

About this title

About the Author

Marcel Theroux is the author of four previous novels: A Blow to the Heart;A Stranger in the Earth;The Paperchase, winner of the 2002 Somerset Maugham Award; and Far North, which was shortlisted for the prestigious National Book Award. He lives in London.

Review

“A page-turning, thought-provoking, exhilarating novel ... ‘Thriller' may be a somewhat misleading label to fasten on a modern fable that also has elements of science fiction, dystopia, and domestic comedy. But without a doubt, Strange Bodies is a thrill to read.” ―The Wall Street Journal

“[Theroux] is a superb writer . . . There are beautiful things, real things, tucked in this novel.” ―Dwight Garner, The New York Times

“[Strange Bodies is] a literary science fiction novel as entertaining as it is thought-provoking and disturbing . . . Theroux masterfully braids horror and ontology, Nabokovian doppelgangers and Orwellian satire into a tragicomic narrative that pulls tight as a noose . . . A brilliant, troubling thriller.” ―Los Angeles Times

“This is a superb technological fantasy, a tense thriller and a brilliantly imagined debate about the relationship between body and soul. Wonderful.” ―Kate Saunders, The Times (London)

“An eerily plausible modern Frankenstein . . . It's not often you read a book as clever as this that is also emotionally charged and moving.” ―Doug Johnstone, The Independent

“Strange Bodies is an examination of contemporary consciousness. But from its robust hook, through its comic set-up, to its dark if hopeful conclusions, it is also a kindly, intelligently entertaining thriller.” ―M. John Harrison, The Times Literary Supplement

“The perfect literary thriller for the internet age.” ―Red Online

“The unfolding of the narrative is genuinely eerie, but the richness of allusion and elegance of design make Strange Bodies as much an inquiry into language and identity as a high-concept literary thriller . . . Its exploration of human vulnerability, the notion that consciousness may be no more than ‘a trick of the light,' is moving as well as thought-provoking, as elegiac as it is gripping.” ―Justine Jordan, The Guardian

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 144343051X
• ISBN 13: 9781443430517
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384