--So what’s the book about? --It about this British guy who goes to The University of Chicago—? --Nah. And it really isn’t about his getting this, like, social illness— --The one where… Come on: it’s impossible to become allergic to lying— --Exactly – the book isn’t about that at all…

The Easy Chain

Literature & Fiction

Dara, Evan

Literary

Aurora, Incorporated

The Lost Scrapbook is arguably the most highly praised, but least known, American debut of the last several decades. Originally published by a non-commercial house, the novel received exactly one review in the mainstream media. But that review called The Lost Scrapbook the most accomplished first novel since William Gaddis' The Recognitions, from 1955. Since then, The Lost Scrapbook has garnered exceptional acclaim, in particular from alternative magazines and from literary sites and readers' groups on the internet. Chosen by William T. Vollmann as winner of The National Fiction Competition.

The Lost Scrapbook

Contemporary

In which a New England town does just that.

Flee

Review\n"A visionary novel that feels at once timeless and eerily well suited to our ongoing moment... Dara's first novel, The Lost Scrapbook, was celebrated by critics and writers including Richard Powers, who called it "monumental, cunning, heartfelt and unforgiving... Dara shows how a novel can be experimental, yet moral, rule-breaking but emotional, and post-humanist while remaining deeply human." This description applies equally to Permanent Earthquake." 
--n+1\n"This is twenty-first-century American writing... [Permanent Earthquake's] unsparing intensity... requires total commitment to a form and voice that was never outmoded or transcended... Only a writer outside the circle of conventional publishing would have the [courage] to attempt this... [Yet] there's a humanist reading of the novel, in persistent tension with the created world that's not just shattered but perpetually shattering." 
--The Baffler\n"This is one of those books that reminds me why I love to read. I read this in like a day and a half, and I can't wait to re-read it... The conceit is highly original, but it's the execution that makes this novel great... A brilliant, brilliant book by one of contemporary America's greatest authors." 
--Travel Through Stories, Top Books of 2021\nSteven Moore: "Most Impressive Books of 2021"\n"Startling... The things I'd come to love about Evan Dara's writing were mostly missing and yet I loved this too. I loved this differently. I gnashed my teeth and bit skin off my fingers trying to figure how a writer could do this... Most of our probing questions on how to live center around what we might take from this world... I see [Evan Dara] as someone who is more concerned with what we might give." 
--The Nervous Breakdown\n"In the running for best book of 2021. For me. Probably not for the New York Times, but only because the world's broken all the way down. It should be on all the lists... [Permanent Earthquake] is a fully immersive experience—you become surrounded by its story, and even now—a week after reading it—part of me is still back there, trembling alongside our hero... If you've never read [Evan Dara] before, it's time." 
--Bloggy Come Lately\nOn an island perhaps in the Caribbean, a young American man - abandoned, resilient - grapples with nonstop instability. His island is being thrashed by an earthquake that has gone on for months, and shows no signs of shaking anything free...\nAurora Publication Date: August 1, 2021

Permanent Earthquake

It may be the defining irony of our time: just as we are coming to recognize our shared destiny and necessary interdependence, our culture seems to be fracturing along every fault line available to it. The Lost Scrapbook is a novel that passionately captures the contradictory richness of our historical slot, a time when feelings of belonging and exclusion can do bitter battle. Conjuring an unforgettable variety of voices, the book delves into lives touched by this tension, before it culminates in a confrontation between a trusting city and the local manufacturing company that both sustains and betrays it. Through the use of a prismatic storytelling form, The Lost Scrapbook finds a contemporary answer to the 19th century novel, evoking an entire world in all its richness and diversity. But by embodying the sense that we can best understand our world through witnessing the interworkings of whole communities, it is also something altogether new: The Lost Scrapbook may be the first "holistic" novel.

United States

Fiction Collective 2

Biografía provisional de Mose Eakins

Pálido Fuego

El cuaderno perdido

La cadena fácil

Genre Fiction

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Books by Dara, Evan

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Dara, Evan. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Easy Chain

The Lost Scrapbook

Flee

Permanent Earthquake

The Lost Scrapbook

The Lost Scrapbook

Biografía provisional de Mose Eakins

El cuaderno perdido

La cadena fácil