Fourteen years after the monumental publication of the international
bestseller The Raw Shark Texts, Maxwell's Demon heralds the
triumphant return of Granta Best Young British Novelist Steven Hall.
Thomas Quinn is having a hard time. A failed novelist, he's stuck
writing short stories and audio scripts for other people's characters.
His wife, Imogen, is working on a remote island halfway around the
world, and talking to her over the webcam isn't the same. The bills are
piling up, the dirty dishes are stacking in the sink, and the whole
world seems to be hurtling towards entropic collapse. Then he gets a
voicemail from his father, who has been dead for seven years.
Thomas's relationship with Stanley Quinn--a world-famous writer and
erstwhile absent father--was always shaky, not least because Stanley
always seemed to prefer his enigmatic assistant and protégé Andrew Black
to his own son. Yet after Black published his first book, Cupid's
Engine, which went on to sell over a million copies, he disappeared
completely. Now strange things are happening to Thomas, and he can't
help but wonder if Black is tugging at the seams of his world behind the
scenes.
Absurdly brilliant, wildly entertaining, and utterly mind-bending,
Maxwell's Demon triumphantly excavates the ways we construct meaning
in a world where chaotic collapse looms closer every day.
