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by Christopher Robinson & Gavin Kovite
In a superb, rare literary collaboration, two major new talents join their voices to tell the story of a generation at a crossroads, and a friendship that stretches over continents and crises - from the liberal arena of Boston academia to the military occupation of Iraq - in this ambitious and electrifying debut novel.
On a summer night, in the arty enclave of Capitol Hill, Seattle, best friends Mickey Montauk and Halifax Corderoy throw one last blowout party before their lives part ways. At twenty-three, they had planned to move together to Boston for graduate school, but global events have intervened: Montauk has just learned that his National Guard unit will deploy to Baghdad at the end of the summer. In the confusion of this altered future, Corderoy is faced with a moral dilemma: his girlfriend Mani has just been evicted and he must decide whether or not to abandon her when she needs him most. He turns to Montauk for help. His decision that night, and its harrowing outcome, sets in motion a year that will transform all three of them.
Months later, Corderoy and Montauk grapple with their new identities as each deals with his own muted disappointment. In Boston, Corderoy finds himself unable to play the game of intellectual one-upmanship with the ease and grace of his new roommate Tricia, a Harvard graduate student and budding human rights activist. Half a world away, in Baghdad, Montauk struggles to lead his platoon safely through an increasingly violent and irrational war. As their lives move further away from their shared dream, Corderoy and Montauk keep in touch with one another by editing a Wikipedia article about themselves: smart and funny updates that morph and deepen throughout the year, culminating in a document that is both devastatingly tragic and profoundly poetic.
Fast-moving and compulsively readable, War of the Encyclopaedists beats with the energetic pulse of idealistic youth on the threshold of adult reality. "A wise and wise-assed first novel...with sweep and heart and humor" (Mary Karr, author of Liar's Club and Lit) it is the vital, urgent, and utterly absorbing lament of a new generation searching for meaning and hope in a fractured world.
"Starred Review. That two different writers are at work is sometimes apparent but not bothersome given that two distinctive characters are in play, and the overall narrative's smart and entertaining." - Kirkus
"Yale Younger Poets Prize finalist Robinson and Kovite, a former infantry platoon leader in Baghdad who's published in various literary magazines, seem to have taken their individual histories and attitudes and invested them in their two main characters, who are deftly portrayed and a perfect fit for each other. Their story unfolds rapidly, humorously, and convincingly from page one." - Library Journal
"An epic for the 9/11 generation, War of the Encyclopaedists chronicles the churning uncertainties of new adults, when everything represents possibility or peril." - Booklist
"Despite the slow start, Robinson's and Kovite's novel is ultimately moving and memorable." - Publishers Weekly
This information about War of the Encyclopaedists was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Christopher Robinson, a Boston University and Hunter College MFA graduate, is a MacDowell Colony fellow and a Yale Younger Poets Prize finalist. His writing has appeared in many publications, including The Kenyon Review and McSweeney's.
Gavin Kovite was an infantry platoon leader in Baghdad from 2004-2005. He attended NYU Law and now is an Army prosecutor. His writing has appeared in literary magazines and in Fire and Forget, an anthology of war fiction.
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