In September 2000, a young programmer comes home from a desert festival to learn that his grandfather has died and that he has to return to Thebes - a town which is so isolated that its inhabitants have their own language - in order to clean out the house where his family lived for five generations. While he's there, he runs into Yesim, a Turkish American woman whom he loved as a child, and begins a romance in which past and present are dangerously confused. At the same time, he remembers San Francisco in the wild years of the internet boom, and mourns the loss of Swan, a madman who may have been the only person to understand what was happening to the city, and to the world.
La Farge's ambitious new work considers large worlds and small ones, love, memory, family, flying machines, dance music, and the end of the world.
Download and start listening now!
"I am a sucker for novels narrated by history grad student dropouts." — Sylvia (4 out of 5 stars)
"I am a sucker for novels narrated by history grad student dropouts."
" It has all the style of say a Franzen or Russo, but gets too muddled and doesn't flow in some places stopping it being up at that level, but I will certainly be reading more by La Farge. "
" I should probably demote Spin State as Luminous Airplanes is undoubtedly a better book. I'd probably give it four stars, but it just kind of peters out at the end, which I found a little unsatisfying. "
Audiobooks Were Restored to Your Cart
[ShoppingCartItemsAddedOnMerge] audiobook(s) were left in your cart from a previous visit, and saved to your account for your convenience. You may view or remove these audiobooks on the shopping cart page.