02/15/2021
Neuroscientist Hoel’s dizzying, impressive debut unloads a series of nefarious plots and suppositions surrounding a research program at NYU. Depressed neuroscience graduate student Kierk Suren, 27, accepts a postdoc position in the Francis Crick Scholarship program with seven other scientists. He immediately alienates his peers, judging them as intellectually inferior, and works on developing a radical theory of consciousness. When fellow postdoc Atif Tomalin is discovered dead on the subway tracks, Kierk and Carmen Green, a former model and another Crick fellow drawn to Kierk despite his surliness, suspect foul play and search for answers. Their paranoia grows as they infiltrate a student group opposed to the program’s animal testing, and intensifies when a group of homeless people claim lab members have been kidnapping and lobotomizing people. Meanwhile, Kierk is tapped by the Department of Defense to help with a mind control program as his theory begins to take shape. Alarming nightmares, crises at the lab, and sexual attraction between Kierk and Carmen propel and confound their quest. While frequent debates over scientific theories and backstories on various characters can clutter the narrative, Hoel adeptly threads everything together by the end. Fast and furious, this mind-stretching novel makes the grade. Agent: Adam Schear, DeFiore and Co. (Apr.)
Erik Hoel has crafted an audacious literary thriller. The Revelations is hilarious and deeply serious, heady and carnal and intellectual, all at once.
author of The Tenth Muse - Catherine Chung
"Hoel’s debut is one of the year’s most ambitious novels to date, a provocative and weighty exploration of nothing short of human consciousness....The novel is packed full with ideas, debates, scientific inquiry, and language that seems itself to come alive. This is a mystery novel you won’t soon forget and the announcement of a major new talent."
Sly and erudite, The Revelations grabs you by the res cogitans and plunges, with pulse-pounding suspense, into a shadowy hall-of-mirrors mystery—which turns out to be nothing less than the blooming, buzzing, sultry confusion of being young and alive in New York. A gripping meditation on consciousness, complexity, and narrative, The Revelations keeps reverberating long after you put it down.
author of Learning to Die in the Anthropocene and War Porn - Roy Scranton
Dense, literary, and hallucinogenic, The Revelations is an impassioned argument over beers and amphetamines. It will be stuck in my brain for some time to come.
Hugo Award–winning author of Blindsight and Starfish - Peter Watts
I have been writing and reading daily for decades, and I have never read anything like Erik Hoel’s remarkable debut novel. . . . The Revelations is a deeply compelling, thought-provoking, and frankly, unforgettable work, one that heralds the arrival of an important new voice among us.
bestselling author of House of Sand and Fog - Andre Dubus III
"The Revelations is written in muscular, hypnotic prose, and not unlike its main character, is ambitious and abrasive. It is bursting with ideas, ranging from Greek mythology to the dark realities of animal testing, to some of the biggest unanswered questions facing scientists today."
The Revelations is a fascinating invitation to link minds with a brilliant neuroscientist and take part in a daring literary thought experiment.
Booker-longlisted author of Love and Other Thought Experiments - Sophie Ward
In this wild and lyrical debut, Erik Hoel merges the dark prescience of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein with the feverish writing of David Foster Wallace, creating a neon-colored cocktail of sci-fi, murder mystery, and love story that is wholly of the twenty-first century. I’ll never think about the brain—or New York City!—the same way again.
bestselling author of Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own - Kate Bolick
"Erik Hoel’s Revelations is as ambitious as the towering skyline of New York City...Hoel’s prose and poetry competently override each other throughout the novel like a canvas being painted over and over...The reader becomes both the observer and the observed in Hoel’s first literary experiment, unconsciously participating in the intellectual exercise to find the theory of consciousness. The writer stimulates the imagination and tests the intellect, while building a house of cards of heavy scientific concepts laid out by the fatigued scientific generation which populates the the novel."
The Revelations is a stunningly written, Escheresque novel, concerned with the great mysteries of our age. It left me smarter for having read it. Like discovering the theory of consciousness itself, it’s a strange trip that’s worth taking.
author of The Falconer - Dana Czapnik
I have been writing and reading daily for decades, and I have never read anything like Erik Hoel’s remarkable debut novel. . . . The Revelations is a deeply compelling, thought-provoking, and frankly, unforgettable work, one that heralds the arrival of an important new voice among us.”—Andre Dubus III , bestselling author of House of Sand and Fog The Revelations is an impassioned argument over beers and amphetamines. It will be stuck in my brain for some time to come.”—Peter Watts , Hugo Award–winning author of Blindsight and Starfish The Revelations is a fascinating invitation to link minds with a brilliant neuroscientist and take part in a daring literary thought experiment.”—Sophie Ward , Booker-longlisted author of Love and Other Thought Experiments Frankenstein with the feverish writing of David Foster Wallace, creating a neon-colored cocktail of sci-fi, murder mystery, and love story that is wholly of the twenty-first century. I’ll never think about the brain—or New York City!—the same way again.” —Kate Bolick , bestselling author of Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own The Revelations is hilarious and deeply serious, heady and carnal and intellectual, all at once.”—Catherine Chung , author of The Tenth Muse The Revelations grabs you by the res cogitans and plunges, with pulse-pounding suspense, into a shadowy hall-of-mirrors mystery—which turns out to be nothing less than the blooming, buzzing, sultry confusion of being young and alive in New York. A gripping meditation on consciousness, complexity, and narrative, The Revelations keeps reverberating long after you put it down.”—Roy Scranton , author of Learning to Die in the Anthropocene and War Porn The Revelations is a stunningly written, Escheresque novel, concerned with the great mysteries of our age. It left me smarter for having read it. Like discovering the theory of consciousness itself, it’s a strange trip that’s worth taking.”—Dana Czapnik , author of The Falconer Publishers Weekly Revelations is as ambitious as the towering skyline of New York City...Hoel’s prose and poetry competently override each other throughout the novel like a canvas being painted over and over...The reader becomes both the observer and the observed in Hoel’s first literary experiment, unconsciously participating in the intellectual exercise to find the theory of consciousness. The writer stimulates the imagination and tests the intellect, while building a house of cards of heavy scientific concepts laid out by the fatigued scientific generation which populates the the novel."—Berfrois Crimereads The Revelations is written in muscular, hypnotic prose, and not unlike its main character, is ambitious and abrasive. It is bursting with ideas, ranging from Greek mythology to the dark realities of animal testing, to some of the biggest unanswered questions facing scientists today."—Brooklyn Digest
