Inhoudsopgave:
A pair of profound dystopian novels from the âbrilliantly breathtakingâ New York Timesâbestselling and National Book Awardâwinning author of The Moviegoer (The New York Times Book Review).  Winner of the National Book Award for The Moviegoer, the âdazzlingly giftedâ Southern philosophical author Walker Percy wrote two vividly imagined satirical novels of Americaâs future featuring deeply flawed psychiatrist and spiritual seeker Tom More (USA Today). Love in the Ruins is âa great adventure . . . so outrageous and so real, one is left speechlessâ (Chicago Sun-Times), and its sequel The Thanatos Syndrome âshimmers with intelligence and verveâ (Newsday).  Love in the Ruins: The great experiment of the American dream has failed. The United States is on the brink of catastrophe. Can an alcoholic, womanizing, lapsed-Catholic psychiatrist really save a society speeding toward inevitable collapse? Dr. Thomas More certainly thinks so. He has invented the lapsometer, a machine capable of diagnosing and curing the countryâs spiritual afflictions. If used correctly, the lapsometer could make anxiety, depression, alienation, and racism things of the past. But in the wrong hands, it could rapidly propel the nation into chaos.  âA comedy of love against a field of anarchy . . . Percy is easily one of the finest writers we have.â âThe New York Times Book Review  The Thanatos Syndrome: In Percyâs âingeniousâ sequel, Dr. Tom More, fresh out of prison after getting caught selling uppers to truck drivers, returns home to Louisiana, determined to live a simpler life (The New York Times). But when everyone in town starts acting strangelyâfrom losing their sexual inhibitions to speaking only in blunt, truncated sentencesâMore, with help from his cousin, epidemiologist Lucy Lipscomb, takes it upon himself to investigate. Together, they uncover a government conspiracy poised to rob its citizens of their selves, their free will, and ultimately their humanity.  âThe Thanatos Syndrome has the ambition and purposefulness to take on the world, to wrestle with its shortcomings, and to celebrate its glories.â âThe Washington Post Book World |