Echo of the Boom
They were all born after the fall of the wall but before the fall of the towers, the author writes about the four main characters in his ambitious first novel: Chloe, the mean queen of her high school who has nuclear nightmares; Molly, whose father is a paranoid survivalist; wealthy Efram, a genius of disorder who makes a habit of being expelled from pricey private schools; and Steven, whose philandering father is a shady international entrepreneur always looking for the main chance. What do these four teens have in common? They’re all waiting, in their respective ways, for the end of days. Clearly intended to be adolescent Horsemen of the Apocalypse (each of the book’s seven sections is introduced with a quotation from the biblical book of Revelation), the four lead lives overshadowed by intimations of disorder, deprivation, destruction, and death. Set largely in Washington, DC, the novel offers a disturbing vision of an unapologetically violent, pre-apocalyptic America in the unfolding lives of the four teens. Though there is enough material here for four novels, the often discursive content coheres nicely at its end. --Michael Cart