No One Thinks of Greenland: A Novel

by John Griesemer

Overview

You'll want to scratch. These spoken words open to us the strange and beguiling world of young Rudy Spruance, forced to join the military due to a mysterious past, and sent for some inexplicable reason to a top-secret military hospital in Greenland. There he meets a wide cast of unusual and colorful characters, outcasts and rejects all; begins to fall for the commanding officer's leggy and strong-willed girlfriend; and slowly uncovers the awful secret behind the portion of the base dubbed the Wing.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780312283360
Publisher:	Picador
Publication date:	05/03/2002
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.72(d)

About the Author

John Griesemer's fiction has been published in Gettysburg Review, Glimmer Train, Boulevard, Threepenny Review, and elsewhere. No One Thinks of Greenland is his first novel. He is currently at work on his second book, an epic historical novel about the laying of the transatlantic cable. He lives with his family in Lyme, New Hampshire.

Editorial Reviews

"What's not to love about this intricately imagined and altogether delightful first novel?...No One Thinks of Greenland is that rarest of first-novel achievements: an across-the-board success." --Esquire

"A powerful look at the madness of war and its aftermath...Griesemer has created a poignant novel, with a soupçon of sassy and irreverent humor." --The Denver Post

"We are in the military screw-up novel....No One Thinksof Greenland contributes wit and wildness of its own, sharpened by the author's gait, all verve and jolt....He hurtles us right in....Griesemer has written a novel with a distinctive cutting vision [and] alluring puzzlement." --The New York Times Book Review

"Dramatic...mystery spiced with romance." --Chicago Tribune

"Griesemer proceeds to savagely send up the military... No One Thinks of Greenland effectively skewers the excesses of the early Cold War mentality." --The Washington Post Book World

"A fever-dream of a novel, destined to become a Cold War classic." --John Sayles

"An intelligent first novel....The book recalls the topsy-turvy military worlds of Catch-22 and M*A*S*H.... Compelling." --Publishers Weekly

"This is a terrific--possibly great--first novel....A quirky, affecting, and powerful read." --Booklist (starred review)

"A terrific and compelling first novel, haunting andbeautifully imagined, that hovers between the real and the apocalyptic. Griesemer pulls off the enviable trickof creating a place that gradually becomes a place werecognize from our dreams." --George Saunders

"Absolutely the best tragicomic literary war candy since Terry Southern's Dr. Strangelove. Literary hijinks laced with the cyanide of truth." --Tom Paine

From the Publisher