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<p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br>Jaz and Lisa Matharu are plunged into a public hell after their son, Raj, vanishes during a family vacation in the California desert. However, the Mojave is a place of strange power. Before Raj reappears-- inexplicably unharmed, but not unchanged--the fate of this young family will intersect with that of many others, both past and present, who have traveled through this odd, remote town in the shadow of a mysterious rock formation known as the Pinnacles. <p/>Among them are an 18th-century Spanish missionary, a former WWII aviation engineer turned desert-cult messiah, and an incognito rock star on the run. As their stories collide and build upon one another, <i>Gods Without Men</i> becomes a heartfelt exploration of the search for meaning in a chaotic universe.<br><p/><br></br><p><b> Review Quotes </b></p></br></br><br>"A beautifully written echo chamber of a novel." --David Mitchell, author of <i>Cloud Atlas <br></i><br>"Gorgeous and wise."<i> --Douglas Coupland <p/></i>"A wildly ambitious novel that spans centuries. --Michiko Kakutani, <i>The New York Times <p/></i>"A distinctly American novel worthy of comparison with the best work of Pynchon and DeLillo." --<i>Salon <p/> </i>"Kunzru can rival ... any current novelist with the strength of his prose and imaginative boldness."<i> --The Wall Street Journal <p/></i>"[A] big, innovative, questioning book.... Deeply beautiful." <i>--San Francisco Chronicle <p/></i>"Quite a ride: This is a book in which monks of the 18th century trudge the Mojave with drug-sodden hippies from the Summer of Love. A book in which Native Americans poised at the twilight of a dying culture try valiantly to guard their myths from relentlessly literal-minded anthropologists. . . . Here are cynical veterans from World War II, hard-bitten GIs fresh from Iraq, randy communards, washed-up bankers, wasted groupies whose only thought is their next roach or a place to park their sleeping bag. Here is death, sex, and rock-and-roll. And all of it, as random as it may sound, is a fitting paean to this jittery world."<i> --The Washington Post <p/></i>"A stunning achievement. . . .<i> Gods Without Men</i> will undoubtedly prove to be one of the most important works of fiction published this year." <i>--The New York Journal of Books <p/></i>"Ambitious and wonderful. . . . Rather than looking for easy answers, Kunzru suggests, we should read instead for the questions--remembering that when you travel in the desert, what looks like an oasis is usually just a mirage."<i> --Milwaukee Journal Sentinel <p/></i>"[A] dreamscape of a novel. . . . Kunzru is a fiercely intelligent writer, who exhibits remarkable control over both his material and his impressive variety of narrative voices."<i> --Slate <p/></i>"The clever symmetries that link the stories reveal the bleached bones of America; violence, an unending contest over the politics of meaning and faith."<i> --The Paris Review <br></i> <br>"A compelling exploration of cosmic-American weirdness." <i>--Entertainment Weekly <p/></i>"[Kunzru's] deft descriptions of contemporary life capture attention, but what impresses at the end of this novel is its sense of history as a mosaic of endless variations on the human effort to make sense of the world." <i>--The Washington Times <p/></i> "<i>Gods Without Men</i> [is] in a genre all by itself. It's not a book easily forgotten, and it may haunt you after you've closed the final pages."<i> --Bookreporter <p/></i>"The finest novel about a cult since Portis's Masters of Atlantis." <i>--Time Out New York <p/></i>"A powerful excavation of the frayed nerves of New Age America. Whether dealing in UFOs, Indian legends or derivative trading systems, <i>Gods Without Men</i> is a novel about the need for faith in a fragmented, postmodern world shorn of grand narratives and credible belief systems."<i> --The New York Observer <p/></i>"Mind-blowing. . . . One of the most original novels I have read in years, daringly imaginative, funny and troublesome, and above all a commentary on certain kinds of lunacy that helps define the American character. . . . The ride the writer takes us on up until the final page is one hell of a hair-raising experience, almost every scene demonstrating Kunzru's extraordinary virtuosity."<i> --Counterpunch <p/></i>"Simultaneously simple and complex, clear and ambiguous." <i>--The Philadelphia Inquirer <br></i> <br>"Beautifully written, ambitiously conceived." <i>--Newsday <br></i><br><p/><br></br><p><b> About the Author </b></p></br></br><b>Hari Kunzru</b> is the author of the novels <i>The Impressionist, Transmission, </i>and<i> My Revolutions, </i> and is the recipient of the Somerset Maugham Award, the Betty Trask Prize from the Society of Authors, a British Book Award, and the Pushcart Prize. <i>Granta </i>has named him one of its twenty best young British novelists, and he was a Fellow at the New York Public Library's Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. His work has been translated into twenty-one languages, and his short stories and journalism have appeared in <i>The New York Times, The Guardian, The New Yorker, </i>the<i> London Review of Books, Wired, </i>and the<i> New Statesman. </i>He lives in New York City. <p/>www.harikunzru.com

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