Cover image for Overthrow : a novel
Title:
Overthrow : a novel
Publication Date:
2019
Publication Information:
[New York] : Viking, [2019]

©2019
Physical Description:
404 pages ; 24 cm
ISBN:
9780525560456
Abstract:
A novel that explores the fate of candor, good will, and the utopian spirit in a world where technology and surveillance are weaponizing human relationships. One autumn night, as a grad student named Matthew is walking home from the subway, a handsome skateboarder catches his eye. Leif, mesmerizing and enigmatic, invites Matthew to meet his friends, who are experimenting with tarot cards. It's easier to know what's in other people's minds than most people realize, the friends claim. Do they believe in telepathy? Can they actually do it? Though Matthew should be writing his dissertation, he soon finds himself falling in love with Leif -- a poet of the internet age-- and entangled with Leif's group as they visit the Occupy movement's encampment across the river, where they hope their ideas about radical empathy will help heal a divided world and destabilize the 1%. When the group falls afoul of a security contractor freelancing for the government, the news coverage, internet outrage, and legal repercussions damage the romances and alliances that hold the friends together, and complicate the faith the members of the group have -- or, in some cases, don't have -- in the powers they've been nurturing. All six will be forced to reckon with the ambiguous nature of transparency and with the insidious natures of power and privilege.
Language:
English
Holds: