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Brilliantly Original
What It Is Like Inside A Conspiracy Theorist's Head During a Caffeine Buzz
atrocious
I can only hope not...
Satire is wishful thinking

A Conspiracy of Tall Men
Noah Hawley
Manufacturer: Pocket
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0671038249

Amazon.com

Noah Hawley quickly sucks us into his loopy, frightening first thriller by creating a perfect world of present-tense paranoia. "Here among the tabouli salads and unprocessed soy drinks the three conspiracy theorists meet each week to discuss developments in the interconnected network of plots driving the world toward a new order," he writes about the lunches that his hero--Linus Owens, a 35-year-old professor of conspiracy theory at Modesto College in San Rafael, California--has with his two friends. "Edward and Roy, despite Roy's innocuous job at Radio Shack and Edward's mostly shut-in status, are cutting-edge anarchists, publishers of anarchic newsletters, organizers of the new virtual revolution. Linus, in contrast, feels sheltered in the fat nest of academia. Sometimes he doubts his phone is even bugged...." But when Claudia, the perfectly normal wife he has somehow managed to acquire, is apparently killed in a plane crash on her way to Brazil (Owens thought she was in Chicago visiting her mother), he has to leave that fat nest and move out into what passes for the real world. It's a place where CIA agents lie about being FBI agents, where his wife's advertising business has sinister connections, and where nothing--or everything--is what he and his crazy companions think it is. --Dick Adler

Book Description

Linus Owen is a young professor of conspiracy theory at a small college just outside San Francisco. He teaches graduate-level classes on JFK and gives seminars on magic-bullet theories and how the symbols on the dollar bill reveal the presence of a secret government that is leading the world to ruin.

Linus' marriage is foundering and his wife, Claudia, an up-and-coming advertising executive, has gone to Chicago to visit her mother. But if Claudia is in Chicago, how is it that two FBI agents show up at Linus' office and inform him that Claudia has been killed in a plane crash on her way from New York to Brazil? And why did a man named Jeffrey Holden, the vice president of a major pharmaceutical company, buy her ticket and die beside her?

Enlisting the aid of Edward and Roy -- his friends and fellow conspiracy theorists -- Linus heads across the country in search of answers. Along the way, the trio encounters a legion of disturbing and provocative characters and clues, including an irascible talk show host, a mind-controlling drug, and art emerging link between Claudia's ad agency and the U.S, Government. As their journey progresses, it becomes frighteningly clear they've left the realm of the academic and are tangled up in a dangerous, multilayered cover-up. Finally, deep in the heart of the American desert, stunned by an ominous revelation, Linus sees he has a new minion: to try to stay alive.

With writing that is electric, whip-smart and suspenseful at each turn, Noah Hawley draws us into a deliciously labyrinthine world of paranoia and plots.

Customer Reviews:

Brilliantly Original.......2006-10-30

I was impressed by this well-written and thoughtful book. The characterizations were rich and interesting; combined with a complicated but very efficient plot, this book far surpasses the typical mystery/thriller genre offerings. Perhaps the most original twist of this book is to start from the premise that everything is the result of hidden machinations rather than to merely make the typical insinuations, which end up so often like the background music of a bad movie.

This is a quest novel, but not of the type the reader suspects. After finishing, I realized that it owed more to the romantic genre than mystery. This is the story of a marriage--a marriage as implausible as the various conspiracy theories taught by our protagonist. Yet, there is truth at the heart of the story. Deep truth.

"Tall Men" had surprises at every turn. In fact, the conversation between our hero and a hit-man still lingers with me--it is precisely that kind of originality that I so rarely encounter and that I am so pleased to discover and to recommend.

One blemish cost this book its fifth star. Frankly, I disagree with the f-word. I believe it has no place in art and it added nothing to this work. Shakespeare wrote some pretty bawdy stuff but he had the skill to fashion expletives and double entendres in such a manner that they are not overly offensive to the general reader. Adult themes are just that, they are thought-provoking and illustrative of the situations that we encounter in life. What I didn't want and didn't need was a barrage of filthy language. Expletives are an unfortunate fact of life, but a writer as gifted as Mr. Hawley could have easily fashioned an original solution to the perceived need to drop the f-bomb that was every bit as witty and original as the remainder of his fine novel.

What It Is Like Inside A Conspiracy Theorist's Head During a Caffeine Buzz.......2006-04-24

You know when you drink a lot of coffee, and the synapses start firing real fast, and you start to get so many ideas that you can't hold them all together? That is what reading this book is like. It induces an artificial state of apophenia.

The author gives you just enough atmosphere and detail to keep you fascinated, without getting bogged down. And his prose is excellent. There is a paragraph-long sentence at the end of the chapter on page 51 of the paperback edition that continues to blow me away.

A fun read. Probably my favorite novel.

atrocious.......2004-03-25

The poor writing in this book is only "bested" by the poor plot development. I kept waiting for wit and originality, but was left (time and time again) with sophmoric prose and predictable cliche.

I can only hope not..........2003-08-24

Don't get me wrong, I definitely did not dislike this book. Fabulous first try. I love the writing style. The bits of information seemingly thrown in about each character (major or extremely minor) could have been tiresome, but worked for me beautifully in keeping me interested. Did you really need to know about Jack Evers' uneasy relationship with his adopted son? These are facts about a character who appears in about three pages of the novel! But it worked for me because you got a sense of a three dimensional person by a few lines of biographical history instead of twelve pages of unnecessary, dodgey dialogue or actions by this minor character. It gave me a sense of reality within context.
The plot, however, seemed not to be as strong. It lost a sense of credibility toward the middle and a developed a few flaws toward the end. The end itself I shook my head at, but then again, how do you put an ending to such an intentionally outrageous story and still have the faith of your audience? If Hawley tones it down a bit for us skeptics out there, he may actually convince some of us that at any time Teddy O. Waren may be seated next to us on a plane.

Satire is wishful thinking.......2000-05-25

I have read zee book mention here but am not convinced is satire. To be satire is to deliberately mock something. Shows control of mind and material as well as firm authorial judgement. But if you read ziss Hawley man's interview you see he takes self extremely seriously. Never mentions satire. Instead implies is performing pubic service for us by writing ziss book. No, is not making fun of idiotic trend but iz participating in der trend.

Literary quality iz also sub par. Not very bad, has obviously been edited, but also nothing really special. Iz OK, but really not that big a deal.

There iz von irony not found in book, but vich includes book. World is currently being duped by true conspiracy called capitalism. A small number of people try to exploit many other. They turn them against each other and distract them with strange entertainment and diversions. One diversion is a sort of "idiot's conspiracy theory". Make people think about UFO's or men in black suits and maybe they don't think that most of world's wealth is in hands of few while many others suffer. Maybe they don't think that such system essentially demeans and harms everyone. But, as great man named Chomsky points out, it is always the obvious things that are the hardest to accept. Thanks, Hawley man for helping to conceal the obvious with entertaining but irrelevant diversion.

Conspiracy of Tall Men, A
Average customer rating:
Conspiracy of Tall Men, A
Noah Hawley
Manufacturer: New York: Harmony Books,
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: B000OV7BTS

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