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Published May 2018
640 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
From the acclaimed PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize-winning author of A Naked Singularity, a shockingly hilarious novel that tackles, with equal aplomb, both America's most popular sport and its criminal justice system.
From Paterson, New Jersey, to Rikers Island to the streets of New York City, Sergio de la Pava's Lost Empress introduces readers to a cast of characters unlike any other in modern fiction: dreamers and exiles, immigrants and night-shift workers, a lonely pastor and others on the fringes of society - each with their own impact on the fragile universe they navigate.
Nina Gill, daughter of the aging owner of the Dallas Cowboys, was instrumental in building her father's dynasty. So it's a shock when her brother inherits the franchise and she is left with the Paterson Pork, New Jersey's failing Indoor Football League team. Nina vows to take on the NFL and make the Paterson Pork pigskin kings of America. All she needs to do is recruit the coach, the players, and the fans.
Meanwhile, Nuno DeAngeles - a brilliant and lethal criminal mastermind - has been imprisoned on Rikers Island for a sensational offense. Nuno fights for his liberty - while simultaneously planning an even more audacious crime.
In Lost Empress, de la Pava weaves a narrative that encompasses Salvador Dalí, Joni Mitchell, psychiatric help, emergency medicine, religion, theoretical physics, and everything in between. With grace, humor, and razor-sharp prose, all these threads combine, counting down to an epic and extraordinary conclusion.
"Starred Review. De la Pava is a maximalist worldbuilder, and the incredible multiverse he constructs in this book establishes him as one of the most fearsomely talented American novelists working today." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. A whirling vortex of a novel, confusing, misdirecting, and surprising - and a lot of fun." - Kirkus
"A hilarious, smart, and madcap novel that occupies the porous border between comedy and drama, science and philosophy, story and dream, grim reality and pure imagination. A singular achievement. I've never read anything like it." - Nathan Hill, author of The Nix
"Lost Empress is a vast galaxy of a book, a searing, frequently hilarious indictment of the absurdity of modern American life told through the lens of this country's two most violent pastimes—professional football and criminal justice. To spend time inside the unfiltered mind of a writer like Sergio de la Pava is a rare, dizzying treat." - Omar El Akkad, author of American War
"I don't know how to do this book justice. It is so bold and so rich and so funny and so filled with pure pleasure for the reader. More than once I've had to stop and get up and walk around the room to process the sheer awesomeness. I feel like I'm in the presence of a major writer - someone of a singular intelligence that is at once alien yet comforting." - Charles Yu, author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe and Sorry Please Thank You
"In Lost Empress, de la Pava's words drip from the pages like melting clocks, simultaneously expressing the best and worst of humanity's eternal struggle against an uncaring universe. From physics to football, Dali to Descartes, this book is a heady look at life, Art, and the power and love of language." - Chris Kluwe, author of Beautifully Unique Sparkleponies and former Minnesota Viking.
This information about Lost Empress 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.
Sergio De La Pava is the author of A Naked Singularity and Personae. He is a public defender in New York City.
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