God Jr.

Book excerpt: The author of Closer “transcends the formulaic with exquisite writing on the level of Rimbaud’s Illuminations . . . an American masterpiece” (James McCourt, Los Angeles Times). God Jr. is the story of Jim, a father who survived the car crash that killed his teenage son Tommy. Tommy was distant, transfixed by video games and pop culture, and a mystery to the man who raised him. Now, disabled by the accident, yearning somehow to absolve his own guilt over the crash, Jim becomes obsessed with a mysterious building Tommy drew repetitively in a notebook before he died. As the fixation grows, Jim starts to take on elements of his son—at the expense of his job and marriage—but is he connecting with who Tommy truly was? A tender, wrenching look at guilt, grief, and the tenuous bonds of family, God Jr. is unlike anything Dennis Cooper has yet written. It is a triumphant achievement from one of our finest writers. “This beautiful book is a first-person narration of how grief grows and morphs after a death, and its style and naked pain make the reader feel like he has suffered a concussion . . . Carefully wrought in Cooper’s trademark short, clipped sentences. There’s no room for the pain to hide, and Cooper lays it bare with humor and striking honesty.” —Time Out Chicago “God Jr. is probably Cooper’s richest, most philosophical novel to date. If the cycle were a video game, this would be its Easter egg.” —SF Gate “Absorbing . . . carefully spare, pop-cultures prose that has earned him a cult following.” —Entertainment Weekly