Anthem

Something is happening to teenagers across America, spreading through memes only they can parse.

At the Float Anxiety Abatement Center, in a suburb of Chicago, Susan Oliver is trying to recover from his sister's tragic passing. He breaks out to join a woman named Louise and a man called the Prophet on a quest as urgent as it is enigmatic. Who lies at the end of the road? A man known as the Wizard, whose past encounter with Louise sparked her own collapse. Their quest becomes a rescue mission when they join up with a man whose sister is being held captive by the Wizard, impregnated and imprisoned in a tower.

Noah Hawley’s new novel is an adventure that finds unquenchable lights in dark corners. Unforgettably vivid characters and a plot as fast and bright as pop cinema blend in a Vonnegutian story that is as timeless as a Grimm’s fairy tale. It is a leap into the idiosyncratic pulse of the American heart, written with the bravado, literary power, and feverish foresight that have made Hawley one of our most essential writers.