Profile of Brian Francis Slattery

Slattery's debut is a kaleidoscopic celebration of the immigrant experience ... Pynchon crossed with Steinbeck, painted by Dali: Impossible to summarize, swinging from the surreal to the hyper-real, a brilliantly handled, tumultuous yarn.

For fans of the surreal odyssey of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man [and] Plan 9 from Outer Space ... For all its colorful characters and gonzo thrills, Slatterys debut is first and foremost a moving portrait of Wendell's grief. A-.

Slatterys chaotic debut takes readers on a headlong trip to the end of the world.... Slattery has a grand time showing off the colorful underground culture of cockfights, raves and endless intoxication that keeps things moving in his hallucinatory vision of New York.

Early reviews of Spaceman Blues threw around the names of Pynchon, Doctorow, and Dick as stylistic touchstones. But Slattery should really be considered alongside NYC homeboys like Lethem and Shteyngart, the former for his loving tweaks of vintage pulp (see Motherless Brooklyn), the latter for his sharp immigrant comedy (see Absurdistan).... he's written a breezy, funny, formally playful book that, as apocalyptic novels go, is a helluva cheerier beach read than Cormac McCarthy's The Road, and so visual it cries out for a film treatment.

Spaceman Blues is a welcome Band-Aid for those still mourning the loss of Kurt Vonnegut and his uniquely wacky, satirical brand of sci-fi. There's also a touch of Paul Auster's flair for genre blending and New York mythologizing.... A strange and whimsical mash note to the city, Slattery's apocalyptome proves that this newcomer is as thoughtful and irreverent as doomsayers come.

The book jacket describes Spaceman Blues as a "literary retro-pulp science-fiction-mystery-superhero novel," and it not only lives up to the hype, but may include a genre or two more besides.... The book weaves a mixture of gritty war elements with hardboiled Hammett-like detective mystery, poetic romance reminiscent of Isabel Allende, and science fiction that brings Stanislaw Lem to mind--into something that seems fresh and compelling.

The blues turn sadness into beauty, and the beauty of Spaceman Blues comes from its willingness to face the sadness with a cold eye and a big heart, to not turn away or cop out or get all drippy with either self-love or self-hatred. Yes, there are aliens and superheroes and secret worlds in this novel, but it's truer than many a tale with more ordinary folks and physics, because it's not blind to either joy or heartbreak, and it never takes an easy way out.