Heathern (Jack Womack) - Softcover

Womack, Jack

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802135633 ISBN 13: 9780802135636

Publisher: Grove Press, 1998

Synopsis

Heathern, the sequel to Ambient and Terraplane, has been praised by William Gibson as a "savage urban baroque informed by a penetrating humanity ... his best so far!" Tautly written and appallingly funny, Heathern is a dystopian tale of corporate combat and media warfare in the fading years of our century.
Thatcher Dryden, former drug kingpin and now leader of the megacorporation Dryco, intends to supply a waiting world with the Messiah it so desperately seeks. But Lester Macaffrey, a schoolteacher found performing miracles among the human flotsam of the Lower East Side, proves no more controllable than any Messiah. While Thatcher's minions scheme to sell the world salvation with a Dryco label on it, Thatcher's own mistress is strangely drawn to Macaffrey -- and begins to be transformed into something new and strange ... something that might change the world.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

In the same surrealistic style of Ambient and Terraplaneok? , Womack's third novel takes place in an alternate America run by the Dryden Corporation (Dryco), whose owner, Thatcher Dryden, has engineered the assassinations of three presidents while searching for one who will remain under Dryden's thumb. Control of the country is also a problem, so when Dryden hears about Macaffrey, a teacher who works miracles, he decides to set up his own religion to be an opiate of the people. Not surprisingly, however, those who channel God's power aren't keen on obeying materialistic rulers. Womack thematically links this book with his previous novels through the use of "postliterary" futurespeak, and characters and plots that refuse to conform to conventional genres. While the book is initially slow going, patience is rewarded with a literate, well-rounded story, told from the viewpoint of Joanna, Dryden's mistress and Macaffrey's ardent disciple. ("Heathern," by the way, is a regional pronunciation of "heathen," as in one who does not believe in the Messiah.)
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

Ordered by her corporate bosses to investigate the authenticity and exploitability of a miracle-working preacher, a young woman confronts her own lost emotions at the hands of a man who just might be the Messiah. Womack returns to the setting of Terraplane (Grove Weidenfeld, 1988) for another dark and violent glimpse into a stark, dystopic future New York. Recommended where cyberpunk and new-wave sf are popular.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Grove Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0802135633
• ISBN 13: 9780802135636
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224