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From the acclaimed author of horror sensation Boys Weekend, a vibrant new graphic novel about a timid academic sent out from the walled dystopian security territory of New York City to investigate a cult in the wilds of the Catskill Mountains.
In 1977, a group called The Spiritual Association of Peers decamps to the woods of the Catskills, taking over an abandoned summer camp. They name their new home Simplicity.
In 2081, scholar Lucius Pasternak, a fastidiously organized trans man, tries to keep his head down living in the New York City Administrative and Security Territory, which was founded after the formal dissolution of the United States in 2041. Then, he's offered a job by the mayor, billionaire real estate developer Dennis Van Wervel, to complete an anthropological survey of the people of Simplicity for a history museum he's financing. A wary Lucius is nevertheless drawn in by the people of the small wooded community, intrigued by its strange rituals and in particular by the charming acolyte Amity Crown-Shy. Born and raised on the compound, Amity is comfortable in their own skin, a striking contrast to Lucius' repressed reserve. But Lucius' control starts to slip when he begins to suffer visions both terrifying and sensual—visits from beautiful but nightmarish creatures.
Then, just as Lucius discovers that Van Wervel's project is more sinister than it seemed, members of the community begin to disappear, leaving behind grisly signs of struggle. The denizens of Simplicity believe that a being they call "The Lamentation" is responsible for the attacks. Amity and Lucius set out to hunt for the creature in the dangerous Exurb Zones, a wild wood full of libertarian doomsday preppers, wealthy isolationists, and worse. There, they'll finally discover the true threat to their way of life—and what they're willing to do to stop it.
"The book is almost too many things at once—science fiction, folk horror, political satire, call to revolution—but Lubchansky spins the disparate elements into an audacious story about 20th-century utopian dreams meeting 21st-century cynicism. It's a sharp addition to the canon of socially relevant science fiction." —Publishers Weekly
"Intense, imaginative visuals pair well with the futuristic fight between idealism and oppression." —Kirkus Reviews
"Mattie Lubchansky is a psychedelic clairvoyant, a cross between Philip K. Dick and R. Crumb, only with much better gender politics. Simplicity filled me with hope and wonder even in the ruins of civilization, and I'm so glad I went on this wild journey. The future is going to be weird no matter what, but Mattie Lubchansky shows us how beautiful and full of life weirdness can be. I love Simplicity in all its deceptive complexity." —Charlie Jane Anders, bestselling author of The City in the Middle of the Night
"Truly superb! Simplicity is a marvel, a perfect look into the ways that people can either fool themselves into accepting complicity or take the harder road that supports community; one that requires us all to make incredibly tough choices. It's funny, heartbreaking, spellbinding, sexy, horrifying, and legitimately brilliant. Mattie Lubchansky is a genius." —Kristen Arnett, New York Times bestselling author of Mostly Dead Things and With Teeth
"Mattie Lubchansky's work is essential—a horny, Boschian vision of paranoia and deliverance. There is more comedy and emotion in their characters' black punctuation-mark pupils than most cartoonists can put in a whole face. In Simplicity, they tackle extremes of bravery and cowardice, of closed-mindedness and freedom, of gender liberation, that Ursula Le Guin should have lived to see. It is a book to savor and ponder and live with until you've finally forgotten enough to read it again." —Isaac Fellman, author of Dead Collections
This information about Simplicity 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.
Mattie Lubchansky is a cartoonist and illustrator. They are also an Ignatz winner, a Herblock Prize finalist, and the author of Boys Weekend and The Antifa Super-Soldier Cookbook. They live in beautiful Queens, NY, with their spouse.
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