Everyone Says That at the End of the World

by Owen Egerton

Overview

In this "often riotous, ultimately moving Cat's Cradle for our time," a Texas couple prepares for the apocalypse (Kirkus Reviews).

In Austin, Milton and Rica are expecting their first child. It's four days and counting. Not for the baby. But for the end of the world. Evidence: Haydon Brock, a godless television star has suddenly traded his Hollywood fame for salvation. A prophetic hermit crab is embarking on an unfathomable cross-country quest. Planes are dropping from the sky. And the president and first lady disappear. No omen is too inexplicable to Milton. He's learned for a fact that our planet is one vast asylum for the incurably insane. And its cosmic guardians are about to close down the whole damn thing.

Then Milton receives one more premonition: to seek out Haydon now holed up somewhere in Marfa. To what end Milton hasn't a clue. To find out, Milton, Rica, and their best friend head west across an increasingly cataclysmic landscape of inter-dimensional time travelers, Jesus clones, sleep-deprived monks, ghosts, and angels in an epic and manic quest to outrun the last days on Earth.

Combining humor, philosophical inquiry and an unforgettable cast of characters, "this sharp-witted satire" (Booklist) "is a future classic, and people will be reading [it] decades from now. I know I will" (Charles Yu, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781593765187
Publisher:	Catapult
Publication date:	04/02/2013
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Owen Egerton is one of the talents behind the award-winning The Sinus Show and Master Pancake Theater at the Alamo Drafthouse Theater, and for several years was the artistic director of Austin's National Comedy Theatre. He's written screenplays for Fox, Warner Brothers and Disney studios. He is also the author of the one-man play The Other Side of Sleep and the novel The Book of Harold, which is currently in development as a television series with Warner Bros. Television. He lives in Austin.

Editorial Reviews

Reading like a mash-up of Twilight Zone tropes, Egerton’s end-of-days novel introduces us to Milton and Rica, an Austin, Tex., couple expecting their first child; Hayden Brock, a godless TV star who abruptly quits Hollywood and goes in search of salvation; and Click, a peripatetic hermit crab. As they go about their lives, satellites and planes fall from the sky, the president and the first lady go missing, and panic seizes the country. Only Milton is privy to the fact that the world will end in four days. A “Non-Man” appears before him and explains that Earth is really an asylum for the mentally ill, and the cosmic keepers are about to close it down. Then, Milton receives a premonition to seek out Hayden in Marfa. Accompanied by Roy, his best friend from college, Milton and Rica head west through an increasingly frenzied landscape of Jesus clones, ghosts, and angel-like beings called Floaters. This novel from Egerton (The Book of Harold) really doesn’t get dramatic until the end of the world is truly imminent. By then, though, the author’s moving depiction of the human survival instinct transcending the apocalypse has become smothered under an increasingly unwieldy narrative. Agent: Matt Bialer, Sanford J. Greenburger Associates (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for Everyone Says That at the End of the World

"The world ends in Austin, Texas, and a multitude of less cool venues, in Egerton's seriocomic eschatological whimsy... A brainy, often riotous, ultimately moving Cat's Cradle for our time peopled with reluctant seekers of spiritual nourishment who might have stepped from the pages of Flannery O'Connor." --Kirkus

"Egerton (The Book of Harold) juggles farce, religious satire, philosophy, and a road trip as a slew of characters converge in a manic quest. A well-traveled hermit crab, 38 mistreated Jesus clones, sleep-deprived monks, and an oft-exchanged prosthetic leg figure into this rollicking madhouse of an apocalypse... Egerton is very funny." --Library Journal

"People at the coffee shop were actually staring at me--I don't think they fully believed that a book could make a person laugh that hard. Egerton has written a expansive novel that is generous enough to cover the end of the world, and the beginning, and a good number of the key points in between, and filled it with warmth, intelligence, wisdom, and humor--a personal and universal cosmology that made me laugh and think and feel and laugh some more. I think this is a future classic, and people will be reading this book decades from now. I know I will."--Charles Yu, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe

"In this expansive, funny, touching epic--part travelogue, part quest narrative--Egerton offers up a Texan love letter generous enough to include even the nutria."--Amelia Gray, author of Threats

From the Publisher

After witnessing the crazed death of his physicist father, Milton meanders through unfocused studies, a stint in a Christian-rock band, and other noodlings until alien time travelers inform him that he will be a major player in the impending end of the world. With pregnant girlfriend Rica in tow, he and buddy Roy scurry across the Southwest, dodging nutria, hailstones, and volcanoes. They're in search of an arrogant actor who has partied himself out of his role as TV's Saint Rick, but who may now be a real saint. Egerton (The Book of Harold) juggles farce, religious satire, philosophy, and a road trip as a slew of characters converge in a manic quest. A well-traveled hermit crab, 38 mistreated Jesus clones, sleep-deprived monks, and an oft-exchanged prosthetic leg figure into this rollicking madhouse of an apocalypse. VERDICT Egerton is very funny, and his novel succeeds when he goes for laughs, but loses coherence when he turns to philosophy. Likewise, his slacker characters are fun for a silly ramble, less likable as they flail through muddled relationships.—Neil Hollands, Williamsburg Regional Lib., VA

Library Journal

The world ends in Austin, Texas, and a multitude of less cool venues, in Egerton's seriocomic, eschatological whimsy. The thing is, nobody has time for the apocalypse. Milton Post and his lover, Rica, nervously expecting an unplanned child, just want to spend some quiet time together. Hayden Brock, a TV actor Rica fell in love with when she was 13, is on the run from video footage that shows his post-Emmy party ending with a tender moment between him and a goat. Roy Clamp, a member of Pearl-Swine, the band that kicked Milton out, is up for anything but isn't exactly a paragon of initiative. Click, a hermit crab, reacts even more passively to outside forces. So as the signs and tokens begin to multiply--Dr. Kip Warner hawks the Lifepods that are supposed to keep the elect safe through the holocaust, sewer inspector Kiefer Bran finds an underground river of blood, heretofore inoffensive nutria overrun Austin and attack its retail establishments--you'd think the cast would be caught flat-footed. But they aren't: They keep moving in response to forces they can't understand. As Egerton (The Book of Harold, 2010, etc.) piles on the analogies among the bemused Milton, the suddenly adrift Hayden and Click the crab, a surprisingly coherent spirituality emerges from the picaresque farce. If the end of the world doesn't quite live up to its advance publicity, well, that's happened often enough before. A brainy, often riotous, ultimately moving Cat's Cradle for our time peopled with reluctant seekers of spiritual nourishment who might have stepped from the pages of Flannery O'Connor.

Kirkus Reviews