Review
Peter Bognanni's
The House of Tomorrow is a fresh and creative novel that I truly enjoyed reading. The story is told in the first person from the perspective of Sebastian Prendergast, a sixteen-year-old boy who is home-schooled by his determined - if not a little bizarre - grandmother in a geodesic dome. His entire world is created and controlled by Nana, a disciple of futurist R. Buckminster Fuller, so when Sebastian meets Jared, an angry, punk-rocking, chain-smoking heart transplant survivor, he discovers that there is a lot to learn about the outside world and himself. Set in rural Iowa, where the hottest local hangout is church, the boys envision that winning the youth group talent contest will be their first step towards becoming glorious punk rockers.
Bognanni uses first person narration, which adds tremendously to the story because it puts readers in...
Beyond the Book
If you're not already familiar with the wildly eccentric personality of R. Buckminster Fuller when you read
The House of Tomorrow, you might be tempted to think that he is a fictional character. However, Richard Buckminster Fuller was, indeed, very real. Born in 1895 in Milton, Massachusetts into the New England tradition of Transcendentalism (he was related to journalist and women's rights activist Margaret Fuller), "Bucky" grew up playing architect and was intrigued by structural design from a very young age.
In 1927, out of work and grieving over the death of his young daughter, Fuller was on the brink of committing suicide when he instead...
