Things We Didn't See Coming by Steven Amsterdam
Richly imagined, dark, and darkly comic, Things We Didn't See Coming follows a man over three decades as he tries to survive - and to retain his humanity - in a world savaged by successive cataclysmic events. Opening on the eve of the millennium, when the world as we know it is still recognisable, we meet the then nine-year-old narrator fleeing the city with his parents, just ahead of a Y2K breakdown of the grid which signals the world's transformation and decline. In the wake of this develop strange, sometimes horrific, sometimes unexpectedly funny circumstances as he goes about the no longer simple act of survival: trying to protect squatters against floods in a place where the rains never stop; harrassed (and possibly infected) by a man wracked with plague; functioning as a salaried embezzler of 'the state'; escorting the gravely ill on adventure trips. Yet despite the violence and brutality of these days, we learn that even as the world is spinning out of control essential human impulses still hold sway - that we never entirely escape our parents, envy the success of those around us and, chiefly, that we crave love. Things We Didn't See Coming is haunting, vividly imagined and beautifully crafted - a stunning debut.
Frightening, beautiful and funny, but above all a deeply human story, and one in which you discover that the end is exactly how you've always imagined it would be* Evie Wyld *
Steve Amsterdam's Things We Didn't See Coming occupies a world at once disturbingly familiar and utterly fantastical. It is both ambitious and successful. Preternaturally assured, finely crafted and thoroughly accomplished, it deserves to be read widely. * Melbourne Age *
It's the end of the world as we know it, but there is always hope - and, at times, love ... Amsterdam is one to watch * Brisbane Courier-Mail *
Fascinating and extremely readable ... a challenging and impressive debut * The Australian *
The forefathers to Amsterdam's novel are the rarefied likes of Cormac McCarthy's The Road. Dire as many of the developments are in Things We Didn't See Coming, the restrained beauty of the storytelling provides an uplifting balance to the content * Sydney Morning Herald *
Steve Amsterdam's Things We Didn't See Coming occupies a world at once disturbingly familiar and utterly fantastical. It is both ambitious and successful. Preternaturally assured, finely crafted and thoroughly accomplished, it deserves to be read widely. * Melbourne Age *
It's the end of the world as we know it, but there is always hope - and, at times, love ... Amsterdam is one to watch * Brisbane Courier-Mail *
Fascinating and extremely readable ... a challenging and impressive debut * The Australian *
The forefathers to Amsterdam's novel are the rarefied likes of Cormac McCarthy's The Road. Dire as many of the developments are in Things We Didn't See Coming, the restrained beauty of the storytelling provides an uplifting balance to the content * Sydney Morning Herald *
Steven Amsterdam, a native New Yorker, works as a psychiatric nurse in Melbourne, Australia.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781846553660 |
| ISBN 10 | 1846553660 |
| Title | Things We Didn't See Coming |
| Author | Steven Amsterdam |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Vintage Publishing |
| Year published | 2010-08-05 |
| Number of pages | 208 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |