Thomas, a man in search of answers, interrogates a varied group of people he has captured, including an astronaut, a policeman, and his own mother, in his quest to resolve questions concerning injustices.

Zusatztext 49425445 Informationen zum Autor Dave Eggers Klappentext From Dave Eggers, best-selling author of The Circle, a tour de force of dialogue and dark humor, coursing emotions and tight control. Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever? is the formally daring, brilliantly executed story of one man struggling to make sense of his country, seeking solutions the only way he knows how. What do you do when you're full of questions: what happened to missions to the moon? Why spend a trillion dollars on war? Where did America go wrong? If you're Thomas, a young man nursing migraines and a lack of direction, this calls for drastic action. To find some answers, Thomas kidnaps a NASA astronaut and brings him to an abandoned military base on the edge of the California coast. Then the questioning begins. The answers must be honest. The back and forth might even hurt. It might get uncomfortable. But eventually the truth will emerge.BUILDING 52 I did it. You're really here. An astronaut. Jesus. Who's that? You probably have a headache. From the chloroform. What? Where am I? Where is this place? Who the fuck are you? You don't recognize me? What? No. What is this? That? It's a chain. It's attached to that post. Don't pull on it. Holy shit. Holy shit. I said don't pull on it. And I have to tell you right away how sorry I am that you're here under these circumstances. Who are you? We know each other, Kev. From way back. And I didn't want to bring you here like this. I mean, I'd rather just grab a beer with you sometime, but you didn't answer any of my letters and then I saw you were coming through town so Really, don't yank on that. You'll mess up your leg. Why the fuck am I here? You're here because I brought you here. You did this? You have me chained to a post? Isn't that thing great? I don't know if you'd call it a post. Whatever it is, it's incredibly strong. This place came with them. This was a military base... Zusammenfassung The bestselling author of The Circle delivers a tour de force of one man struggling to make sense of his country, seeking solutions the only way he knows how. A "story about someone who takes revenge against the world because he can't fathom how he fits into it.... This is a one-sitting read" ( USA Today ). What do you do when you're full of questions: what happened to missions to the moon? Why spend a trillion dollars on war? Where did America go wrong? If you're Thomas, a young man nursing migraines and a lack of direction, this calls for drastic action. To find some answers, Thomas kidnaps a NASA astronaut and brings him to an abandoned military base on the edge of the California coast. Then the questioning begins. The answers must be honest. The back and forth might even hurt. It might get uncomfortable. But eventually the truth will emerge....

ldquo;Politically and polemically engaged in the tradition of Dickens and Zola . . . another novel located in a frightened, divided, deceitful and possibly disintegrating America . . . Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever? is a hostage drama of sorts. It opens with Thomas, the disaffected protagonist, explaining to Kev Paciorek, a Nasa astronaut who just missed out on the space shuttle when funding was withdrawn, why he has been kidnapped and tied to a post in Building 52, an empty hangar in Fort Ord, an abandoned military base on the California coast . . . Many skilfully delayed revelations . . .  privately and publicly astute, confirming that the writer's joke about genius in his debut title was not entirely misplaced.” -- Mark Lawson, The Guardian
 
"Another startling leap into new territory . . . Here is a tale as tightly wound as an alarm clock. Told entirely in dialogue, it takes place on a deserted military base on the California coast. Thomas, its hero, has kidnapped an astronaut, Kev, and chained him to a post. . . Eggers has always been as elastic writer, but in Your Fathers he puts his language to the ultimate test. Thomas’ tone yaws from sincerity to creepy insinuation, capturing the abrupt shifts and feedback loops of delirium. Happily, however, Eggers never pushes his young hero over the edge. Thomas has done something at best ill-advised, at worse criminal. Thomas merely wants what we all want; an accounting. In this gripping and saddening book, Eggers has shown what happens when young men like him don’t get answers." -- John Freeman, *Toronto Star

“Joan Didion began her career chronicling a certain ennui afflicting Californians coming up in the Vietnam era who were quickly losing faith in the society their parents created . . . The sense of a similar void animates Dave Eggers' new novel, Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever? . . . Eggers has a knack for potent images of frustration . . . So soon after Elliot Rodger's California massacre, Eggers has produced something timely. There is a book to be written about angry young white men turning against a society that isn't giving them what they think they're owed.” -- Sam Worley, Chicago Tribune

"The third instalment in what now seems a triptych about people slipping through the cracks of our contemporary aspirations . . . a peculiar hostage drama told entirely in dialogue, looks like farce on the surface, but a sharp set of teeth soon shows through . . . alert, quick-witted and dogma-averse . . . [Eggers] works hard to surprise, challenge and confound . . . A book whose themes resonate far beyond its short length. This is a writer on the best kind of roll." -- Tim Martin, The Telegraph

"Fathers is a screaming, bleating cry for society to fix itself. It is a frothing, angry, mournful meditation on what is slipping away as America plows on into the 21st century….Eggers' decision to make Fathers a continuous dialogue is an interesting one. It intensifies the already manic qualities of his protagonist, Thomas, and makes for a lightning-quick read . . . compelling and at times suspenseful.” -- Henry C. Jackson, Chicago Daily Herald

“Hard not to be affected by his charm and literary DIY . . . We begin with Thomas, a confused young man who has drugged and kidnapped a NASA astronaut named Kev. Thomas is a mixed-up psychopath and arsonist who previously has attempted to burn down a hospital after his mentally disturbed best friend, Don Banh, was killed in a police shooting. . . Working in the tradition of Manuel Puig’s Kiss of the Spiderwoman and Nicholson Baker’s Vox, the novel is without description or speaker attribution. . . Ambitious.” -- Alex Gilvarry, The Boston Globe

"Dave Eggers' latest novel is short and snappy. Composed entirely of dialogue, it breezes through four days in the life of Thomas, a disillusioned sociopath who has finally decided to get some answers to the questions that are strangling him at night . . . Eggers has created an appropriately Sophoclean space to look at Thomas' burning questions: Why does society prepare you for a life that doesn't exist? Why is there no grand, universal struggle? Why is there no purpose in life outside of individual needs? These concerns dance so gracefully into the discussions that you barely notice you're sparring with the existential heavyweights until one of them knocks you out . . . This short, provocative novel feels a bit like Jack Bauer stepping into Kierkegaard's collected works. Lively and fast enough for the casual reader, it also ambitiously confronts a grand history of philosophical angst. While the book's literary kin might be Dostoevsky or K…