Description
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Review Quotes: hopeful about how humanity might make use of the technologies at hand." --The San Francisco Chronicle "A hugely impressive debut that immediately establishes Elan as a vital new voice." --The Irish Times "In Portia Elan's capable hands, Homebound brings its readers to the future through different perspectives, stories, forms, to grapple with the meaning of love and interconnectedness." --Town & Country " Homebound approaches the scale of the characters' work with optimism, rather than impatience or despair, and rewards the reader with small glimpses of how that work reverberates across generations. In a moment when I often find myself reading for escape--reading, in essence, to leave this reality for a little while-- Homebound made me want to stay, too." --Brooklyn Rail "Elan writes through the eyes of multiple characters across time and space to explore connection, identity, found family and what a future on this planet might hold for us." --Southern California News Group "This striking novel follows Becks, a 19-year-old grappling with a sudden loss and an undying desire to leave Cincinnati, when she takes on a gaming project that has an impact for centuries to come." --People "Magnificent... A marvel." --Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Elan deftly knots these threads together, gradually revealing layered stories about queer love and loss, making peace with one's mistakes, and finding a path through obstacles outside your control... Like Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven, Homebound portrays a plausible, forlorn version of the future, one that's tied to the past through the staying power of stories." --Booklist (starred review) "An ingenious narrative that explores the meaning of love and interconnectedness across time." --Kirkus (starred review) "The magic of Elan's novel is the fact that as it unfolds, the story of Homebound the game is unfolding too, linking readers of Elan's book with the fictional readers within it... A gift to readers." --Library Journal (starred review) Review Quotes: "What a pleasure it was to read this book. Homebound's radiant heart and the sure-footed clarity of Elan's prose seduced me from the first page. It's the kind of scope and pleasure that, forgive me for using the shorthand of comparison, reminds me of the novels of Emily St. John Mandel and Daniel Mason." --KELLY LINK, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Book of Love " Homebound is a big, bold, ecstatic world--full of heart and wonder--where stories weave through time to connect us, and our faith in each other makes us human." --RUTH OZEKI, New York Times bestselling author of A Tale for the Time Being and The Book of Form and Emptiness "A novel to get lost in, Homebound is deeply felt, deftly crafted and beautifully written. A story of friendship and family, of hope and invention and love. An inspiring debut." --CHARLES YU, National Book Award Winner for Interior Chinatown "A fascinatingly plausible and atmospheric story of a future shaped by tech and love intertwined." --EMMA DONOGHUE, #1 bestselling author of The Paris Express " Homebound is a joy--at once a gripping mystery that confidently spans centuries, and a hauntingly beautiful exploration of what makes us human. Inventive and gritty, powerful and clear-eyed, it kept me up all night!" --MADELINE MILLER, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Circe and The Song of Achilles "A sparkling novel, a work of joyous and serious invention that moves fluidly between forms--text-based computer game, coming-of-age story, sea adventure--that is also profoundly attentive to the concept of home as something portable, created by family (born and chosen), storytelling and solidarity." --KALIANE BRADLEY, New York Times bestselling author of The Ministry of Time " Homebound's multiple narratives gloriously span centuries into the future to chart the voyages people take to find connection and community. Portia Elan's ingenious novel is a puzzle-story, a nostalgic ode to 80s video games and punk rock, and a speculative look into the ways technology has reshaped longing. You need to read it!" --KEVIN CHONG, Giller Prize-shortlisted author of The Double Life of Benson Yu "Inventive and full of feeling. New insight into queerness and computer games unlocked." --MAGGIE THRASH, author of Rainbow Black " Homebound is the most original and arresting novel I've read in a very long time. Elan has created a century-spanning epic that's also an utterly intimate story of love, loss, and found family. What a joy; what a marvel." --ANNA NORTH, New York Times bestselling author of Outlawed and Bog Queen Biographical Note: Portia Elan studied history at Stanford University and earned an MFA from the University of Victoria, British Columbia, before returning to California, where she has worked as a teacher and public librarian. A former Lambda Literary Fellow, she lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her wife and an abundance of cats. Homebound is her first novel. Publisher Marketing: A NATIONAL BESTSELLER - A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK - A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR - In a dazzling ode to human inventiveness and the desire for meaning, four lives are entangled across time by one unfinished story, saved to a floppy disk in the 1980s and destined to ripple across the centuries. "A joy...and a hauntingly beautiful exploration of what makes us human. It kept me up all night!" --MADELINE MILLER, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Song of Achilles "A big, bold, ecstatic world--full of heart and wonder." --RUTH OZEKI, New York Times bestselling author of A Tale for the Time Being 1983. Becks is nineteen, blasting her Walkman, and hiding from the fact that her beloved uncle, and the only person who understood her, is dead. Luckily, he left her a half-finished video game to complete--one last collaboration to find her way out of loneliness. 2078. Dr. Portman works at the intersection of artificial intelligence and robotics, wrestling with her responsibility to Earth's precarious future. But increasingly, it seems an exceptional project may transcend everything she believed to be possible... 2586. After decades of life on the sea, Yesiko knows a scavenger's work is rife with moral compromise. Yet when a long-lost piece of technology walks aboard her ship, she is set on a path toward a sacrifice even she may be unwilling to make. Linking these women across the centuries is a chain reaction of love, longing, and creativity that reveals our deep interconnectedness. Clear-eyed and hopeful, Homebound imagines how future generations will find meaning in the things we leave behind. Review Citations:
Contributor Bio:Elan, Portia |
Homebound: A GMA Book Club Pick: A Novel
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