Lightning People

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On Sale: | $17.95

9781593765019 | Paperback 6 x 9 | 416 pages Buy it Now

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9781593764630 | Ebook | 368 pages Buy it Now

Book Description

Capturing the atmosphere of anxiety and loss that exists in Manhattan, this is a story of the city itself, and the interconnected lives of those attempting to navigate both Manhattan and their own mortality.

Joseph Guiteau is a working actor who moved to New York to escape a tragic family history in the Midwest. Wandering through a city transformed by the attacks of September 2001, he frequents gatherings of conspiracy groups, trying to make sense of world events and his own personal history. Looming over his life is a secret that threatens to undermine his new marriage to Del, a snake expert at a city park, whose work visa is the only thread keeping her from deportation back to her native Greece.

The new marriage influences the lives of those around them: William, a dark and troubled actor whose sanity is fading as quickly as his career, leading him to perform increasingly desperate acts; Madi, a young entrepreneur who will have to face the moral complications of a business made successful by the outsourcing of American jobs to India; and her brother Raj, Del’s former lover, a promising photographer whose work details the empty rooms of an increasingly alienated city.

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Praise For This Book

Praise for "Lightning People"
"Smart and rich with the spirit of our age, with keen insight into human emotions and why we do the things we do. So readable." -Douglas Coupland
"Christopher Bollen's "Lightning People" is a tour de force that calls to mind "The Great Gatsby." Bollen writes with both humor and humanity, as he paints a canvas of love, loss, and youth in New York, and beyond. By the end, I felt I knew these people, these beautiful lightning people, and I felt myself caring for them in ways I hadn't anticipated." --Vendela Vida, author of "The Lover's"
""Lightning People" is a spacious saga about America. It is centered on New York and the lives of people about to be no longer young, a generation marked by 9/11 and a sense of doom or at least diminished expectations. But it is also about Cincinnati and Miami and Sikhs and failed actors and accidental murderers. This is a big book that speaks to and for a whole generation and that draws in dozens of portr