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Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher
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English
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BIG BANG

David Bowman

Set in the 1950's, this epic, Warholian novel presents a brilliant and wholly original take on the years leading up to the Kennedy assassination.
Where were you when you first heard President Kennedy had been shot? This is a question most people can answer, even if the answer is "I wasn't born yet." In this epic novel, David Bowman makes the strong case that the shooting on November 22nd, 1963 was the major, defining turning point that catapulted the world into an entirely new stratosphere. It was the second big bang.

In this hilarious, lightning-fast historical novel, Bowman follows the most famous couples of the decade as their lives are torn apart by post-war's new normal. We see Lucille Ball's bizarre interrogation by the House UnAmerican Activities Committee and Jackie Onassis' moonlight cruise with Frank Sinatra . We follow Norman Mailer and Arthur Miller as they attempt to get quickie divorces together at a loophole resort in Nevada and watch a young Howard Hunt snoop around South America with the newly founded CIA. A young Jimi Hendrix, now the epitome of counterculture cool, tries his luck as a clean cut army recruit.

Written with an almost documentary film like intensity, BIG BANG is a posthumous work from the award-winning author of Let the Dog Drive. A riotous account of a country, perhaps, at the beginning of the end.


Tragically, David Bowman died from a cerebral hemorrhage in 2012 at the age of 54. But he left behind this brilliant and wholly original take on the years leading up to the second Big Bang - the Kennedy assassination.
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Book

Published 2019-01-15 by Little, Brown

Book

Published 2019-01-15 by Little, Brown

Comments

There are dozens of plots, which Bowman juggles with an agility that's breathtaking. he writes with a real focus. His prose is elegant but stubbornly unshowy. 'Big Bang' is a stunningly accomplished novel, both deeply American and deeply weird.

One of the most assured voices in contemporary American fiction.

UK: Little Brown UK

Readers who get the feeling they've bought a nonrefundable ticket on a runaway bullet train....are best advised to strap themselves in and hang on for dear life: once the train has left the station, there's no turning back.

A kaleidoscopic portrait of America in the years leading up to the assassination of John F. Kennedyand a chillingly prophetic vision of how we got to where we are.Bowman's testament is both lament and celebrationfor the betrayed promise of the United States as well as the tragedy of the author's premature demise.

[B]ig, bold, and brilliant [.] [Bowman] relates all of these remarkable tales with a straight-faced, just-the-facts approach, stripping these giants of the 20th century of their mythic status and rendering them as mere humans - caught, like everyone, in the crossfire of unrelenting history. Bowman's self-described "nonfiction novel" is a stunning and singular achievement.

An excerpt from Jonathan Lethem's introduction also ran in the New Yorker Read more...