I Am Radar by Reif Larsen
Big, beautiful, ambitious . . . It takes narrative magic to pull off such a loopy combination, and luckily, Reif Larsen has it to spare. His prose is addictive and enchanting. --Los Angeles Times
The moment just before Radar Radmanovic is born, the hospital's electricity fails. The delivery takes place in total darkness. Lights back on, everyone present sees a healthy baby boy--with jet-black skin--born to the stunned white parents. No one understands the uncanny electrical event or the unexpected skin color. A childbirth is an explosion, an ancient physician explains. Some shrapnel is inevitable, isn't it? A kaleidoscopic novel both heartbreaking and dazzling, Reif Larsen's I Am Radar rapidly explodes outward from Radar's strange birth. In World War I Norway, a cadre of imprisoned schoolteachers founds a radical secret society that will hover on the margins of history for decades to come, performing acts of radical art and experimental science in the midst of conflict zones from embattled Bosnia to Khmer Rouge Cambodia and the contemporary Congo. All of these stories are linked by Radar--now a gifted radio operator living in the New Jersey Meadowlands--who struggles with love, a set of hapless parents, and a terrible medical affliction that he has only just begun to comprehend. Drawing on the furthest reaches of quantum physics, forgotten history, and mind-bending art, Larsen's I Am Radar is a triumph of storytelling at its most primal, elegant, and epic: a breathtaking journey through humanity's darkest hours, yet one that arrives at a place of shocking wonder and redemption. Praise for I Am RadarA deeply patterned narrative that darts easily from small-bore domestic dramas to sweeping historical catastrophes with just the right fillip of silliness and levity to keep the whole text eminently approachable. --The New York Times Book Review
Reif Larsen is the author of two novels for adults, The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet (a New York Times bestseller) and I Am Radar. The Selected Works was won by Penguin in a ten-house auction for almost one million dollars, and was made into a movie, The Young and Prodigious T. S. Spivet, starring Kathy Bates and Helena Bonham-Carter. He also writes articles on travel for the New York Times, GQ, and others. Reif received an MFA from Columbia University. Visit him at reiflarsen.com. Ben Gibson spends his days making charts about things like birds, cats, dogs, wizards, skyscrapers, outer space, grammar, rap music, invisible things, fruits, vegetables, sharks, bicycles, and dinosaurs at the company he co founded, Pop Chart. Pop Chart's award-winning designs can be seen in people's homes all around the world, and in collaborations with brands such as the New York Times, Esquire, GQ, Wired, HBO, and Comedy Central, among others.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781594206160 |
| ISBN 10 | 1594206163 |
| Title | I Am Radar |
| Author | Reif Larsen |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Penguin Press |
| Year published | 2015-02-24 |
| Number of pages | 672 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |