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Rowan Van Zandt lives with his brother Faron and his mother Umma in a place that sounds like Cabrini Green; their father Pop is serving time in the Cuba Pens for killing a man who tried to steal the rum that Pop won fair and square at work. Umma is basically lost without Pop, which means that Rowan and Faron are on their own much of the time, truant from their Vocationals and exploring their environment. The family's new troubles begin when Faron dares Rowan to be the "trail guide" at the Zoo - a totally illegal place for them to be, and a totally illegal thing for them to do. It results in disaster; the boys find themselves in jail.
Enter Terry Nguyen with an amazing proposition. He wants the Van Zandts to pilot a rocket ship into space. One must realize that science as we know it today no longer exists. Space is a myth. Mr. Nguyen has found a preserved rocket ship, complete with "even a child can do it" instructions; his proposition is terrifying to everyone except Pop, who has already signed on. Nguyen manipulates the rest of the family into doing the same. They are surprised to find that there is another family ready to head into space: the Reades. Mae, Bill, and their daughter Sylvia are also training for this adventure. Rowan is enthralled by Sylvia. So many disasters await these seven individuals.
At some point between the opening paragraph and the beginning of training for the mission, the story line becomes difficult to explain. This is due, at least in part, to the vocabulary of the characters and their world. Names in this future world are close, sometimes, to names that a contemporary reader might recognize. The Orange Man at the Zoo, for instance, is pretty obviously an orangutan. Cape Cannibal is where the rocket is - another obvious transposition. They are not all so easy to translate. The relationships of the human beings, on the other hand, are universally recognizable.
That single fact is what makes the book so bizarre and, at the same time, so wonderful. Rowan's world is very strange in the details and yet immediately recognizable in the bigger picture. It reads as if ANIMAL FARM, 1984, and some of Christopher Moore's stranger works were put into a literary blender and mated with Kafka . . . not for everyone, but one hell of a read for those with a mind for the gloriously warped.
§ P.J. Coldren lives in northern lower Michigan where she reads and reviews widely across the mystery genre when she isn't working in her local hospital pharmacy.
Reviewed by P.J. Coldren, June 2015
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