I Am Radar

A baby named Radar is at the center of this sprawling story of history, parenthood, and fate. Born black to white parents, Radar has a life full of mystery from the minute he enters the world. He grows up to become a radio transmitter, and Adam Grupper infuses the unfolding connections with mysterious undertones. His narration moves swiftly through the story's many shifting time periods and countries. In the transitions from Eastern Europe to modern America, he maintains a steady tempo. Grupper's flexibility is evident in the characters' emotions, as revealed in dialogue. He excels with a range of male and female voices of a variety of nationalities. This is a complex, lengthy work, well told for the patient listener. M.R. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

Starred review from December 15, 2014
The gripping story of Radar Radmanovic, born in Elizabeth, N.J., in 1975, begins with his coal-black skin—which came as a total surprise to his white
parents. The troubled couple take young Radar to northern Norway for an experimental electric-shock procedure that will alter his skin color. There, they meet a tight-knit group of secretive physicists/puppeteers who call themselves Kirkenesferda. They stage elaborate avant-garde puppet performances in the middle of war zones and recruit Radar’s father—an expert radio and TV engineer. With masterly prose, Larsen (The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet) tells the tragic history of how the puppeteers managed to create art while others around them suffered and died, everywhere from New Jersey to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The novel takes a Borgesian turn near the end, when Radar finds himself in Africa, helping Kirkenesferda produce its most ambitious performance yet. Larsen’s many vivid imaginings include a spellbinding narrative of a family torn apart by the Bosnian war (complete with photos and drawings), the history of a Cambodian rubber plantation, and a treacherous journey across the Atlantic in a container ship. This is a sprawling, engrossing novel about the ravages of war and the triumph of art. Larsen is an effortless magician, and his performance here is a pure delight. Agent: Denise Shannon, Denise Shannon Literary Agency.