Any Day Now: A Novel - Hardcover

Bisson, Terry

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1590207092 ISBN 13: 9781590207093

Publisher: The Overlook Press, 2012

Synopsis

It is a poignant excursion into the last days of the Beats and the emerging radicalized culture of the sixties from Kentucky to New York City and daringly unique. This road movie of a novel, which begins as a fifties coming-of-age story and ends in an isolated hippy commune under threat of revolution, provides a transcendent commentary on America then and now.

About this title

About the Author

Terry Bisson is a Hugo and Nebula award writer. He has published seven novels and his short fiction has appeared in Playboy and Harper's magazine, among others. He previously worked as an auto mechanic and as a magazine and book editor. Bisson lives in Oakland, California.

Review

"An unsettling, funny, freaky reimagining of America, impeccably written, by one of our most consistently interesting transgressors of literary boundaries." — Michael Chabon

"He writes like a man who invented language . . . Treat yourself to this book." — Peter Coyote, author of Sleeping Where I Fall

"Someone once said everybody has a book inside them, but it takes a writer to get it out. The truth is, not many writers ever even manage it like this. Bisson just wrote his personal masterpiece, a book which will drop you through the floor of your assumptions about coming of age inside the politics and counterculture of the Vietnam era and into a fresh new-old world, in which you'll live, for the duration of this book, as your own." — Jonathan Lethem

"The author, a writer of (probably under-appreciated) sf and fantasy novels, here deftly resurrects Sixties America. As history is gradually subverted and chronology reshuffled, the reader is slightly jarred and then fascinated by the dramatic world presented. Highly recommended for its literary quality and creativity of vision." — Library Journal



"In this unsettling but always interesting alternate-history novel, which offers much subversive commentary on contemporary society, Bisson's jazz-like prose summons a utopia whose adherents seek personal freedom only to find that their basic civil liberties can vanish in an instant." — Booklist

"Bisson plays off the shared imagery of the bohemian underground, and the story has a thrumming momentum, a sense of slangy sass and jive, light-hearted yet soulful." — Washington Post

"Bisson's novel is less an alternate history than a kind of shadow history, explored in a way that only SF can explore it. On his website, Bisson modestly says the novel is 'not exactly science fiction; and not exactly not.' In fact, it's both – and neither aspect would be nearly as compelling without the other. What it is, I think it's fair to say, is the major work of one of our most talented and under-appreciated writers, in or out of the SF fold." — Locus Magazine

"Terry Bisson's new novel, Any Day Now, a blend of coming-of-age tropes and alternate history, sweeps us through the turbulent '60s and imagines a 1968 that both RFK and MLK survived. Bisson uses short scenes with minimal exposition and snappy dialogue. This leads to some crystallizing moments . . . It also lets Bisson capture the spirit of the times in single strokes." — The Rumpus

"Any Day Now is a fascinating examination of the struggle for self-definition and idealism against both the machinations of authority and the whimsical and cruel vagaries of fate. Clay's journey introduces him to plenty of iconic figures of the time, and even as Bisson deftly shifts history, these now-mythical figures cast as long a shadow as ever. That marvelous juxtaposition of how brutal the quest for peace can be is thoroughly enthralling, creating a truly unique reading experience." — Sacramento/San Francisco Book Review

Edition details

• Publisher: The Overlook Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1590207092
• ISBN 13: 9781590207093
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256