Anthem - Noah Hawley

I really enjoyed Noah Hawley's previous book - Before the Fall. (my review) His new novel is the recently released Anthem. 

I was intrigued by the plot description. From Grand Central Publishing:

"The first big novel of 2022: an epic literary thriller set where America is right now, in which a band of unlikely heroes sets out on a quest to save one innocent life—and might end up saving us all.

Something is happening to teenagers across America, spreading through memes only they can parse.  

At the Float Anxiety Abatement Center, in a suburb of Chicago, Simon Oliver is trying to recover from his sister’s tragic passing. He breaks out to join a woman named Louise and a man called The Prophet on a quest as urgent as it is enigmatic. Who lies at the end of the road? A man known as The Wizard, whose past encounter with Louise sparked her own collapse. Their quest becomes a rescue mission when they join up with a man whose sister is being held captive by the Wizard, impregnated and imprisoned in a tower.  

Noah Hawley’s new novel is an adventure that finds unquenchable lights in dark corners.  Unforgettably vivid characters and a plot as fast and bright as pop cinema blend in a Vonnegutian story that is as timeless as a Grimm’s fairy tale.  It is a leap into the idiosyncratic pulse of the American heart, written with the bravado, literary power, and feverish foresight that have made Hawley one of our most essential writers."

Okay, here's the thing - and it's very hard for me to say this. But, Anthem is a very rare DNF for me. I've picked up and put down the book many times. At page 114 I threw in the towel. 

I want to stress that Hawley is a truly talented writer. His scathing depictions and dismantling of society, politics, religion, business, pharmaceuticals, history, climate and more are unsettling, yet strangely spot on. Hawley is writing about our world, now and in the near future.

Anthem takes place a few years after the Covid pandemic has passed. The generation of teenagers who will be the new leaders in a few years have chosen to kill themselves - in droves. This was pretty hard to read as so many of us are feeling pandemic fatigue. "Now we had to wonder, had that endless lockdown our children endured, had long-term mental health effects - all that computer schooling, the chronic fear of falling behind academically, socially, the endless months of heightened anxiety and uncertainty?

Page 114 details a text exchange between an unknown male and a young teenage girl. And it's ugliness saddened me. And I thought - I just don't want to read anymore. I admit to sneaking ahead to the last few chapters - and I thought yes, I've confirmed my decision to myself. I wasn't up for the journey to that last chapter. But I did find that last chapter was redemptive. 

I do encourage you to check out the five star reviews on Goodreads.