Brittle Star

2015 Longlist

In this sly and hypnotically gripping story of exiles on a distant planet where nothing is what it seems, Rod Val Moore shows us our own imagination as both wonderland and prison cell. This is Huxley’s Brave New World as it might have been reinvented by Italo Calvino: part dystopic allegory, part epistemological mindgame, and always a brilliantly insightful investigation of the human soul.

(From Publisher)

About the Author

Rod Val Moore was born in Utah but has spent most of his life in California, earning degrees in English, and a masters degree in linguistics. He has published short stories in a variety of journals. In 1994 he won the Iowa Fiction Award for his story collection Igloo Among Palms. In 2013 his novel A History of Hands won the Juniper Prize for Fiction. He teaches English, linguistics, and creative writing at Los Angeles Valley College, and lives in L.A. with his wife, the artist Lisa Bloomfield.

Librarian’s Comments

It cannot be resisted. “Picture two brains, one labeled innocent, the other labelled guilty, floating in bright liquid in two laboratory beakers. “