{"product_id":"mad-eden","title":"Mad Eden","description":"\n\u003ctable align=\"center\" border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"2\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\"\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd class=\"productDetailSmallElements\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eBiographical Note\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eMorgan Thomas\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of the story collection \n\u003ci\u003eManywhere\u003c\/i\u003e, which was a finalist for the PEN\/Bingham Prize, the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, the Lambda Literary Prize for Transgender Fiction, and the Publishing Triangle Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction. Their writing has appeared in \n\u003ci\u003eThe Paris Review\u003c\/i\u003e, \n\u003ci\u003eThe Atlantic\u003c\/i\u003e, \n\u003ci\u003eThe Kenyon Review\u003c\/i\u003e, \n\u003ci\u003eAmerican Short Fiction\u003c\/i\u003e, and \n\u003ci\u003eThe Yale Review\u003c\/i\u003e. A graduate of the University of Oregon MFA program, they have also received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Sewanee Writers' Conference, and elsewhere.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eReview Quotes\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Thomas writes with remarkable imaginative clarity.\" \u003cb\u003e--Jasmine Vojdani, \u003ci\u003eVulture\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"This is why I read, for books like this, books that change my life by showing me more of the world than I might've otherwise experienced. It has been a long time since a piece of literary fiction has grabbed me like this, and I'm going to be forever grateful for it . . . spectacular.\" \n\u003cb\u003e--Drew Broussard, \u003ci\u003eLit Hub\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Brilliant . . . Thomas's gorgeously constructed story explores difficulties of love, as Ro, a refreshingly complex protagonist, weighs their idyllic bliss with Liam against their desire to help those in need. This luminous novel is impossible to forget.\" \n\u003cb\u003e--\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e (starred review) \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"In their debut novel, Thomas demonstrates thrilling control of their craft, delivering a story as thoughtfully constructed as it is exhilarating to read. Ro and Liam are as real and compelling as characters come, their relationship providing the tangible fabric of the novel. There is true symbiosis here between form and content . . . Radically inventive, compassionate, and perspicacious. Compulsively page-turning.\" \n\u003cb\u003e--\u003ci\u003eKirkus \u003c\/i\u003e(starred review)\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\"In a genre-defying debut novel, Thomas has crafted a stunning depiction of what finding joy can look like in a world that means to do you harm . . . Led by autistic and genderqueer Ro, the storytelling is at once deeply rooting and starry-eyed. Much like the serial at its heart, Mad Eden has collaged fantasy, science, the political, and the personal into a story unlike any other.\" \n\u003cb\u003e--\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003ci\u003e\"Mad Eden\u003c\/i\u003e is unlike anything I've read--a novel of staggering invention and fearless intimacy. Morgan Thomas bends time, myth, and science into a story that is dazzling and devastating, tender and unflinching. It's a book about queer and autistic survival, about care and precarity, about joy insisting on itself in the face of collapse. Sentence by sentence, \n\u003ci\u003eMad Eden \u003c\/i\u003eremakes the world as it tells it. What lingers is not resolution but creation itself: the hum of a book that will not end.\" \n\u003cb\u003e--Morgan Talty, author of \u003ci\u003eNight of the Living Rez \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eFire Exit\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Every Morgan Thomas sentence is a shocking, surprising, and devious diamond. They are one of the best prose stylists working today and a true magician of character and place. \n\u003ci\u003eMad Eden \u003c\/i\u003etransported me and changed me.\" \n\u003cb\u003e--Emma Copley Eisenberg, author of \u003ci\u003eHousemates \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eFat Swim\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\" \n\u003ci\u003eMad Eden \u003c\/i\u003ehas taken hold of me and will not let go. It's a novel about trans and neurodivergent family, about care bans and TERF psyops, but also about how texts are remixed and altered--and how our collective identity crisis is in some sense a memetic replication crisis. I can't stop thinking about this book and it's earned a place on my queer classics shelf next to Audre Lorde and Rachel Pollack, among others. \n\u003ci\u003eMad Eden\u003c\/i\u003e is utterly gorgeous--with so many sentences I wanted to underline--and feels utterly essential at this moment when so many of us are feeling lost.\" \n\u003cb\u003e--Charlie Jane Anders, Nebula and Hugo-winning author of \u003ci\u003eLessons in Magic and Disaster \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eAll the Birds in the Sky\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \"Bold, inventive, bursting with intelligence and heart. \n\u003ci\u003eMad Eden\u003c\/i\u003e illuminates the lives of queer, neurodivergent, and Southern characters seeking, against all odds, joy in an inhospitable world--while showing the costs of denying others, and oneself, such joy and radical acceptance. In \n\u003ci\u003eMad Eden\u003c\/i\u003e, Morgan Thomas doesn't shy away from showing how the personal and the political are deeply intertwined. Thomas is one of the most visionary and exciting writers in contemporary fiction today.\" -- \n\u003cb\u003eDaphne Palasi Andreades, author of \u003ci\u003eBrown Girls\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Morgan Thomas is brilliant. Who else could bring autism, dragons and queerness together with such boldness, joy and intelligence in the most artful sentences and scientific seriousness? The insular world of these characters emphasises the dangers of an outside that sets traps, but inside is seeking and tender and messy. An inventive and revelatory portrait of a neurodivergent mind--funny, moving, sensual, mysterious, and genius, I have never read anything like \n\u003ci\u003eMad Eden.\" \u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e--'Pemi Aguda, author of \u003ci\u003eGhostroots \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\" \n\u003ci\u003eMad Eden\u003c\/i\u003e burrowed into my brain and made me touch the world differently. In an inhospitable time, Morgan Thomas has given us a slippery paradise--with alligators and dragons hiding in its grass, yes, but with the fruits of tenderness and love and joy in easy reach.\" \n\u003cb\u003e--Katherine Packert Burke, author of \u003ci\u003eAll Us Saints\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eStill Life\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublisher Marketing\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e\"\u003c\/i\u003eA story that is dazzling and devastating, tender and unflinching . . . Sentence by sentence, \u003ci\u003eMad Eden \u003c\/i\u003eremakes the world as it tells it.\" --Morgan Talty, author of \u003ci\u003eNight of the Living Rez \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eFire Exit\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eMad Eden\u003c\/i\u003e is utterly gorgeous--with so many sentences I wanted to underline--and feels utterly essential at this moment when so many of us are feeling lost.\" --Charlie Jane Anders, author of \u003ci\u003eLessons in Magic and Disaster \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eAll the Birds in the Sky\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom a pathbreaking writer, a thrilling, form-bending novel about a trans healthcare worker whose carefully built life is suddenly imperiled. \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003eRo and Liam live in a ramshackle cabin in a secluded stretch of Florida. Neither their home nor their sometimes-tumultuous relationship is what the world would call perfect, but to Ro--newly diagnosed with autism and working as a patient navigator for people seeking gender-affirming care--their life, despite the deeply inhospitable political climate, is a kind of paradise. \n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIt's hard to pinpoint exactly what shatters their peace. There's Quentin, the unpredictable teenager for whom Liam and Ro are quasi-parents, who visits on his way to college, where he plans to finally start T. There's the appearance of \"Mad Eden,\" an online fantasy serial about heroic dragon riders that increasingly becomes Ro's obsession. And then there's a seemingly innocuous patient video call that results in consequences both unexpected and grave. This triad of circumstances sends Liam's and Ro's world spinning toward disaster--unless Ro can become the real-life hero their situation demands without betraying who they are and who they love. \n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWith colossal heart and preternatural skill, Morgan Thomas crafts a deliciously destabilizing debut novel that challenges us to confront and reinvent questions of language, sex, prejudice, identity, and the shifting scales of morality. Playing with the possible relationship between autism and time to forge an ingenious new kind of storytelling, \n\u003ci\u003eMad Eden\u003c\/i\u003e imagines, with exhilarating courage, how we might yet joyfully live in a precarious world. \n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eReview Citations:\u003c\/strong\u003e\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"italic\"\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/span\u003e 04\/20\/2026 (EAN 9780374620158, Hardcover) - *Starred Review\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"italic\"\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/span\u003e 04\/24\/2026 pg. 1 (EAN 9780374620158, Hardcover)\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"italic\"\u003eBooklist\u003c\/span\u003e 05\/01\/2026 (EAN 9780374620158, Hardcover)\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"italic\"\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/span\u003e 05\/15\/2026 (EAN 9780374620158, Hardcover) - *Starred Review\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eContributor Bio:\u003c\/strong\u003eThomas, Morgan\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eMorgan Thomas\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of the story collection \n\u003ci\u003eManywhere\u003c\/i\u003e, which was a finalist for the PEN\/Bingham Prize, the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, the Lambda Literary Prize for Transgender Fiction, and the Publishing Triangle Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction. Their writing has appeared in \n\u003ci\u003eThe Paris Review, The Atlantic, The Kenyon Review, American Short Fiction, \u003c\/i\u003eand \n\u003ci\u003eThe Yale Review.\u003c\/i\u003e A graduate of the University of Oregon MFA program, they have also received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Sewanee Writers' Conference, and elsewhere.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\n","brand":"MCD","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51496133820694,"sku":"9780374620158","price":33.6,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0857\/9910\/8886\/files\/9780374620158.jpg?v=1783053724","url":"https:\/\/lusper.myshopify.com\/products\/mad-eden","provider":"Lusperbooks","version":"1.0","type":"link"}