Famous Men Who Never Lived, K Chess
Famous Men Who Never Lived, K Chess
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Famous Men Who Never Lived

Author: K Chess

Narrator: Amy Landon

Unabridged: 9 hr 14 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/05/2019

Categories: Fiction, Science Fiction


Synopsis

For fans of Station Eleven and Exit West, Famous Men Who Never Lived explores the effects of displacement on our identities, the communities that come together through circumstance, and the power of art to save us.

Wherever Hel looks, New York City is both reassuringly familiar and terribly wrong. As one of the thousands who fled the outbreak of nuclear war in an alternate United States—an alternate timeline—she finds herself living as a refugee in our own not-so-parallel New York. The slang and technology are foreign to her, the politics and art unrecognizable. While others, like her partner Vikram, attempt to assimilate, Hel refuses to reclaim her former career or create a new life. Instead, she obsessively rereads Vikram's copy of The Pyronauts—a science fiction masterwork in her world that now only exists as a single flimsy paperback—and becomes determined to create a museum dedicated to preserving the remaining artifacts and memories of her vanished culture.

But the refugees are unwelcome and Hel's efforts are met with either indifference or hostility. And when the only copy of The Pyronauts goes missing, Hel must decide how far she is willing to go to recover it and finally face her own anger, guilt, and grief over what she has truly lost.

About K Chess

K. Chess was a W. K. Rose Fellow, and her short stories have been honored with the Nelson Algren Award and the Pushcart Prize. She earned an MFA from Southern Illinois University and currently teaches at GrubStreet. She lives with her wife in Boston, Massachusetts.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Glenn on January 18, 2023

"For many individuals and families, their reason to leave the only home they have ever known is simply that they have no other option. Currently, there are nearly 80 million men, women and children fleeing war, persecution and political turmoil. These people are refugees and asylum seekers." The abov......more

Goodreads review by Felicia on December 22, 2018

I was absolutely floored reading K Chess’ debut FAMOUS MEN WHO NEVER LIVED. The tone, the way timelines and story structure are manipulated, and the feel of the book is reminiscent of both Vonnegut and Nabokov, but very much its own, written for the modern era. The work is both carefully crafted sci......more

Goodreads review by James on October 24, 2018

Blending rich characterization and stylish writing with a wonderfully layered narrative (and a healthy dose of chaos theory), K Chess's debut novel depicts a group of survivors transported from a doomed alternate New York City to our own through a scientifically designed portal. Though the set-up of......more

Goodreads review by K.A. Doore on October 15, 2018

When an alternate Earth is threatened by nuclear war, desperate refugees flee through an untested portal, accepting the very real risk that there might not be anything on the other side for the possibility of safety. When Hel arrives in a New York not too unlike her own, safe and whole and alive, it......more

Goodreads review by Chris on March 26, 2019

Famous Men Who Never Lived is built upon a tremendous premise: survivors from a doomed alternate timeline, selected through lottery, flee through a portal into our world. They're registered, treated as refugees, and forced to endure stigmas they cannot shake and restrictions that deny them their fre......more