Overview
Art critic Clement Greenberg, champion of abstract expressionism, is more interested in silencing his rival Harold Rosenberg than with the threat of nuclear destruction. Greenberg is driving from New York to the Emma Lake artist colony in Saskatchewan, where he intends to silence Rosenberg once and for all. With him is infamous Marxist Louis Althusser, who escaped prosecution for strangling his wife in France on an insanity plea. Althusser is heading to a Saskatchewan hospital for LSD therapy. Pursuing them is Jean Claude Piche, a veteran of the conflicts in Indochina and Algeria, contracted to execute Althusser for the unpunished murder. The 1950s were Greenberg's decade. Yet by 1962, everywhere Greenberg looks he is bedevilled by Andy Warhol's Campbell Soup cans, just as everywhere Althusser looks he sees capitalist decay. Jean Claude catches Greenberg and Althusser at Niagara Falls. The enigmatic arch patriot Swen catches all three in North Dakota. Convinced that they are communist subversives, Swen imprisons and interrogates them even as, hour by hour, minute by minute, Khrushchev and Kennedy threaten to launch World War III. An absurdist romp, Atomic Road charts its own course between historical veracity, fictional invention, and the unfettered egotism of two mad intellectuals.
Grant Buday
Grant Buday is the author of 'White Lung' and 'A Sack of Teeth'. His story "The Curve of the Earth" won the 2006 'Fiddlehead Magazine' short fiction contest. He lives with his family in the Gulf Islands, B.C., where he does not grow pot.
Reader Reviews
Tell us what you think!
Sign Up or Sign In to add your review or comment.
Related Blog Posts
September 1, 2020
Before Vancouver there was Gastown, and before Gastown there was New Brighton, only 5 kilometres east. Set in New Brighton from 1858 to 1885,
Orphans of Empire (Touchwood Editions) is a deftly crafted trio of narratives that converge at the site of the New Brighton Hotel ... Read more
August 25, 2018
This week we revealed our perfectly-normal crushes on literary characters, bid farewell to our summer book club, picked up some debut fiction, and more.
August 23, 2018
If you’ve read Grant Buday’s
Atomic Road (Anvil Press) — an absurdist novel about two historical intellectuals on a trip to Emma Lake — you might be wondering how Louis Althusser, the famous Algerian-born French philosopher, ended up in Northern Saskatchewan at the ... Read more