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G.P. Putnam's Sons
July 2017
On Sale: July 18, 2017
Featuring: Venter Lowood; Adam Lyons
432 pages
ISBN: 039957543X
EAN: 9780399575433
Kindle: B01M3U54NB
Hardcover / e-Book
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Science Fiction Alternate History
A Most-Anticipated book of 2017 by The Millions Everyone else knows the truth about you, now you can know it, too.
Thatβs the slogan. The product: a junky contraption that tattoos personalized revelations on its usersβ forearms. Itβs an old con, playing on the fear that we are obvious to everybody except ourselves. This particular oneβs been circulating New York since the 1960s. The ad works. And, oddly enough, so might the device... A small stream of city dwellers buy into this cult of the epiphany machine, including Venter Lowoodβs parents. This stigma follows them when they move upstate, where Venter canβt avoid the whispers of teachers and neighbors any more than he can ignore the machineβs accurate predictions: his motherβs abandonment and his fatherβs disinterest. So when Venterβs grandmother finally asks him to confront the epiphany machine and inoculate himself against his familyβs mistakes, heβs only too happy to oblige. Like his parents before him, Venter is quick to fall under the spell of the deviceβs sweat-stained, profane, and surprisingly charming operator, Adam Lyons. But unlike them, Venter gets close enough to Adam to learn a dark secret. Thereβs an undeniable pattern between specific epiphanies and violent crimes. And Adam wonβt jeopardize the privacy of his customers by alerting the police. It may be a hoax, but that doesnβt mean what Adam is selling isnβt also spot-on. And in this sprawling, snarling tragicomedy about accountability in contemporary America, the greater danger is that Adam Lyonβs apparatus may just be right about us all.
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