Your Fathers, Where Are They? and the Prophets, Do They Live Forever?

Here's the setup for this audiobook, narrated by an ensemble cast: A man named Thomas essentially kidnaps an astronaut named Kev and holds him on an abandoned military base. They have a connection that Kev struggles to recognize, but as the book moves along, this becomes clearer and clearer. The book is presented almost like a play, and the result is an engaging, raw blunt instrument that only happens to resemble a work of literature. MacLeod Andrews does the bulk of the narration, complemented by a cadre of terrific voices that inhabit the characters they portray. There's enough salty language to cover a ton of peanuts, but little of it is gratuitous, given the story's conceit and the author's writing, which tends to be on the edgy side. R.I.G. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine

April 28, 2014
Composed entirely of dialogue, the latest from Eggers (The Circle) is more tedious deposition than gripping drama. The novel is set on an abandoned military base along the Pacific coast, where Thomas, a troubled man, is interrogating a diverse group of chained captives. Frustrated by his lack of purpose and in search of answers about injustices large and small, Thomas kidnaps Kev, a driven astronaut who represents "the one fulfilled promise" he's ever known. This first interview inspires Thomas to seek out further captives: an ex-congressman, a policeman, a disgraced schoolteacher, his own mother and others. Depending on the prisoner, Thomas is respectful or abusive, solicitous or prosecutorial, but he never wavers in his view of himself as a "moral" and "principled man." He is outraged at the abuses, shortsightedness, and skewed priorities of the government and its institutions, yet yearns for that government to provide him with some defining role or plan: "Don't we deserve grand human projects that give us meaning?" As for the captives, they generally respond to their unhinged interrogator with sententious or stilted speechifying: "Thomas, you want to attribute your behavior to a set of external factors." There are flashes of sardonic humor and revelations about the triggering event behind the kidnappings, but by then readers will feel as if they themselves have been detained far too long. Agent: Andrew Wylie, Wylie Agency.