Library of America’s series of guest posts by contemporary American writers returns with the following contribution from Eugene Lim, whose novel Dear Cyborgs has just been published by FSG Originals.
In a concise 176 pages, Dear Cyborgs interweaves two narratives: one about two isolated Asian American boys in the Midwest who bond over a mutual love of comics, and the other about a group of disaffected superheroes pondering resistance strategies in the era of late capitalism.
Novelist Jonathan Lethem, who just edited the anthology Shake It Up: Great American Writing on Rock and Pop from Elvis to Jay Z for Library of America, is already a vocal fan of the novel, telling The Chicago Review of Books that it “blew me away with its deceptively blithe mixture of cryptic humor, philosophical ingenuity, and genuine political yearning… . I hope it makes a splash out there in this overcrowded world.”
Below, Lim pulls the curtain back on the literary and extra–literary influences that went into his new book.
Read the list at the Library of America blog.