A review by briandice
The Origin of the Brunists by Robert Coover

5.0

While reading this novel it occured to me on more than one occasion that I was very happy that this wasn't the first Coover book I'd read. This work is so very different than his fairy tale making-and-breaking works that require new maps to navigate his fictional terrain; The Origin of the Brunists is a story told in a Coover voice unfamiliar taking those other works into account - and yet charged with enough voltage to remind the reader that everything here is third rail. By the last 20 pages of the novel I wasn't sure which of us was donning the dynamite laden vest. This book eviscerated everything Americana with such scalpel precision it seemed that there was no option other than the hair trigger detonator tripping and taking everything with it - reader, author, American culture and any second act. That Coover continued on after its publication in 1966 to write more novels - and then return to the subject matter to publish a 1,000+ page sequel 48 years later is an achievement so monumental it is difficult for me to really comprehend, having now finished the first book and being so affected by it.

Such an important book. A shame that here on GR it has less than 300 reads. I cannot recommend it strongly enough.