Locus Amoenus - Hardcover

Victoria N. Alexander

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1579623913 ISBN 13: 9781579623913

Publisher: The Permanent Press, 2015

Synopsis

In this beautifully nuanced dark comedy, a 9/11 widow and her son, Hamlet, have retreated from Brooklyn to the idyllic rural countryside upstate, where for nearly eight years they have run a sustainable farm. Unfortunately, their outrageously obese neighbors, who prefer the starchy products of industrial agriculture, reject their elitist ways (recycling, eating healthy, reading).

Hamlet, who is now eighteen, is beginning to suspect that something is rotten in the United States of America, where health, happiness, and freedom are traded for cheap Walmart goods, Paxil, endless war, standard curriculum, and environmental degradation. He becomes very depressed when, on the very day of the 8th anniversary of his father's death, his mother marries a horrid, boring bureaucrat named Claudius.

Things get even more depressing for Hamlet when he learns from Horatio, a conspiracy theorist, that Claudius is a fraud. The deceptions, spying, and corruption will ultimately lead, as in Shakespeare's play, to tragedy.

About this title

From the Author

I have always known that national politics is a great waste of time. The fact that either red or blue can come up with about equal probability in any given election leads me to suspect that the decision is really a thoughtless coin toss, a mere muscular reaction, a twitch. When I had a free moment, I promised myself, I'd get involved locally, at the radical root of democracy, where I might be able to do something. A few years ago, I made an effort in the rural New York hamlet where my family owns a farm. And now I know it isn't corruption or conspiracy that is to blame so much as a meaner disease, complacency and conformity. I groan at the prospect of taking on this subject, with which I would much rather have nothing to do.
-V.N.A.

From the Back Cover

A satirical examination of how we live in the 21st century, in the United Estates of America, with less civilization and more discontents than hitherto. Amidst nostalgic reflections on our past, Alexander notices current absurdities and contradictions in our appetites and critique of consumerism, and despite the tragedy, we have the consolation of her humor. I haven't laughed this well while reading in a long time.
-Josip Novakovich, author of Shopping for a Better Country and Man Booker Prize finalist
 
Brilliantly combining Shakespeare's knowing personal-political masterpiece, Hamlet, with post-911 ruminations of an edifying diversity of characters inhabiting Amenia in rural New York, novelist Victoria N. Alexander manages to do the three things that Nabokov says a good novelist must do: tell a story, inform, and enchant. Locus Amœnus, a short, sweet, sui generis blend of contemporary adult fiction and geopolitical drama, reminds us that something may be rotten in more than Denmark.
-Dorion Sagan, author of The Cosmic Apprentice
 
This brilliant, searing political novel deserves to be read by all of those interested in the current and future state of the United States of America. Darkly comic, wry and witty, Locus Amœnus is a genuine pastoral, a critique of the bloating and corruption of American life that draws on Hamlet for its dissection of politics, relationships, and love in post-9/11 America. From Swift to Shakespeare, the literary antecedents for Locus Amœnus are wide and varied, but the novel that emerges is wholly original and haunting in its graphic depiction of contemporary American mores and failures. I can't recommend Victoria N. Alexander's new novel enough.
-Oona Frawley, author of Flight, Irish Book Award finalist
 
A tale of dark political corruption, betrayal and a through the looking-glass world where you can believe six impossible things before breakfast, Locus Amœnus is also a fiercely funny romp by a talented writer.
-Charles Holdefer, author of The Contractor
 
Alexander's Locus Amœnus is a biting, witty, and ultimately touching window on modern American life. She evokes the wit and depth of the best of Kingsolver and high satire and earnest social exploration of Pynchon or Delillo. Her experiences bridging the worlds of rural and urban northeastern America provide those of us with experience of both a welcomed bit of nostalgia, longing, familiarity, and a sense of loss. This story is to be savored, and hopefully re-read in certain existential moods.
-David Koepsell, author of Reboot World

About this edition

• Publisher: The Permanent Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1579623913
• ISBN 13: 9781579623913
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 192