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A review by lauratheintractable
Anthem by Noah Hawley
3.0
This is the way this book ends - not with a bang but a whimper.
I give this book 3 stars because the writing is exceptional. There are also a couple of compelling characters. But the beginning of the book writes checks the end can’t cash and ultimately the overall feeling was savagely anticlimactic. I loved the first 250 pages - I was swept along, interested in what Hawley had to say and the way he said it. Around page 275 I started thinking, "I don't think there is any plausible way to make all of these threads intersect." Around page 300, I thought, "This sonofabitch is about to solve his problems with the 'then a nuclear war happens and everybody dies' plot device." And that made me mad, and I had to get up and walk away for a while.
“Anthem” endeavors to tackle multiple primary characters and storylines at once. Margot Nadir is nominated for a seat on the Supreme Court at the same time that her daughter, Story, goes missing. Turns out her daughter has run off with her boyfriend, Felix, whose real name is Samson DeWitt, to rescue his sister, Bathsheba, who is being held captive by a Jeffrey Epstein analog who impregnated her. Meanwhile, 15-year-old Simon, whose older sister committed suicide, stages an escape from a secure psychiatric facility with a traumatized self-mutilator named Louise and another teenager they call the Prophet. Other random characters include a potentially immortal generically evil woman known only as the Witch; Margot’s husband, Remy, who has just discovered he has ALS (there is a ton of time spent on this which is wild because it ends up having nothing to do with the plot), an antigovernment felon named Avon, and a handful of psychotic teenagers.
Oh, one other thing - there’s an epidemic of suicide among young people. Like they’re just offing themselves in every way they can think of and leaving the same cryptic message behind.
Who is the Witch and what does she want? Is she an immortal force of evil, and if not, how is it she survives third degree burns over 100% of her body, and why does she crouch behind dumpsters to stare at our protagonists? Why is your Jeffrey Epstein guy called the Wizard? What does Margot’s Supreme Court confirmation have to do with literally anything else in this book? Will Remy tell his wife he has ALS? Is the Prophet really talking to God, or is he just insane? Why are all these suicidal kids leaving the same message behind? Will Bathsheba be forced to have pseudo-Epstein’s baby? Is Simon going to be okay?
We will never know. Like, not ever. Because this book does not tell us. Margot and Remy are killed by a suicide bomber before they find out what happened to either Story or the Supreme Court nomination process. Apparently the kids are all killing themselves because they have lost hope, although why this inspires them to all leave the same cryptic message and off themselves in groups we will never know. The Supreme Court confirmation hearings have nothing to do with anything. We don’t know what happens to pseudo-Epstein or his rape baby. The Witch is never, ever explained, and no explanation is hinted at. It does not matter that Remy has ALS, because it never becomes relevant in literally any situation. Maybe the Prophet is talking to God, maybe he isn’t. Maybe Simon will be okay, but who knows.
Eventually the troubled teenagers head off to a remote area to start a Utopia that has absolutely no way of dealing with the intractable social problems, interpersonal dynamics, and/or unresolved major plot questions the author spends hundreds of pages ranting about.
To me the cherry on top of this frustrating novel dessert was the “Epilogue,” where Noah Hawley breaks the fourth wall to tell us that his daughter keeps asking him how he is going to end the ACTUAL BOOK WE ARE READING and he says, essentially, “I don’t know.”
And he never figured it out, and his editor didn’t make him.
I give this book 3 stars because the writing is exceptional. There are also a couple of compelling characters. But the beginning of the book writes checks the end can’t cash and ultimately the overall feeling was savagely anticlimactic. I loved the first 250 pages - I was swept along, interested in what Hawley had to say and the way he said it. Around page 275 I started thinking, "I don't think there is any plausible way to make all of these threads intersect." Around page 300, I thought, "This sonofabitch is about to solve his problems with the 'then a nuclear war happens and everybody dies' plot device." And that made me mad, and I had to get up and walk away for a while.
“Anthem” endeavors to tackle multiple primary characters and storylines at once. Margot Nadir is nominated for a seat on the Supreme Court at the same time that her daughter, Story, goes missing. Turns out her daughter has run off with her boyfriend, Felix, whose real name is Samson DeWitt, to rescue his sister, Bathsheba, who is being held captive by a Jeffrey Epstein analog who impregnated her. Meanwhile, 15-year-old Simon, whose older sister committed suicide, stages an escape from a secure psychiatric facility with a traumatized self-mutilator named Louise and another teenager they call the Prophet. Other random characters include a potentially immortal generically evil woman known only as the Witch; Margot’s husband, Remy, who has just discovered he has ALS (there is a ton of time spent on this which is wild because it ends up having nothing to do with the plot), an antigovernment felon named Avon, and a handful of psychotic teenagers.
Oh, one other thing - there’s an epidemic of suicide among young people. Like they’re just offing themselves in every way they can think of and leaving the same cryptic message behind.
Who is the Witch and what does she want? Is she an immortal force of evil, and if not, how is it she survives third degree burns over 100% of her body, and why does she crouch behind dumpsters to stare at our protagonists? Why is your Jeffrey Epstein guy called the Wizard? What does Margot’s Supreme Court confirmation have to do with literally anything else in this book? Will Remy tell his wife he has ALS? Is the Prophet really talking to God, or is he just insane? Why are all these suicidal kids leaving the same message behind? Will Bathsheba be forced to have pseudo-Epstein’s baby? Is Simon going to be okay?
We will never know. Like, not ever. Because this book does not tell us. Margot and Remy are killed by a suicide bomber before they find out what happened to either Story or the Supreme Court nomination process. Apparently the kids are all killing themselves because they have lost hope, although why this inspires them to all leave the same cryptic message and off themselves in groups we will never know. The Supreme Court confirmation hearings have nothing to do with anything. We don’t know what happens to pseudo-Epstein or his rape baby. The Witch is never, ever explained, and no explanation is hinted at. It does not matter that Remy has ALS, because it never becomes relevant in literally any situation. Maybe the Prophet is talking to God, maybe he isn’t. Maybe Simon will be okay, but who knows.
Eventually the troubled teenagers head off to a remote area to start a Utopia that has absolutely no way of dealing with the intractable social problems, interpersonal dynamics, and/or unresolved major plot questions the author spends hundreds of pages ranting about.
To me the cherry on top of this frustrating novel dessert was the “Epilogue,” where Noah Hawley breaks the fourth wall to tell us that his daughter keeps asking him how he is going to end the ACTUAL BOOK WE ARE READING and he says, essentially, “I don’t know.”
And he never figured it out, and his editor didn’t make him.