October's Post-Apocalyptic Book Discussion: Fiskadoro

Changing pace and page count, we pick one of National Book Award-winning Denis Johnson's lesser known novels. Published during the Cold War's last gasps (1985), Fiskadoro focuses on survivors of a nuclear blast who have huddled on the Florida Keys. As the society gives way to a new generation (including the title character) who have no pre-war memories, a conflicting narrative emerges among the junk heap of the past. One blogger called this "sci-fi as written by Samuel Beckett." That is more succinct than what the New York Times said at publication: "the sort of book that a young Herman Melville might have written had he lived today and studied such disparate works as the Bible, 'The Waste Land,' 'Fahrenheit 451' and 'Dog Soldiers,' screened 'Star Wars' and 'Apocalypse Now' several times, dropped a lot of acid and listened to hours of Jimi Hendrix and the Rolling Stones."