The New and Improved Romie Futch, Julia Elliott
The New and Improved Romie Futch, Julia Elliott
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The New and Improved Romie Futch

Author: Julia Elliott

Narrator: T. Ryder Smith

Unabridged: 11 hr 2 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 10/01/2015


Synopsis

From the author of The Wilds, which Publishers Weekly called "a brilliant combination of emotion and grime, wit and horror," comes a debut novel that is part dystopian satire, part Southern Gothic tall tale: a disturbing yet hilarious romp through a surreal New South where newfangled medical technologies change the structure of the human brain and genetically modified feral animals ravage the blighted landscape. Down on his luck and still pining for his ex-wife, South Carolina taxidermist Romie Futch spends his evenings drunkenly surfing the Internet before passing out on his couch. In a last-ditch attempt to pay his mortgage, he replies to an ad and becomes a research subject in an experiment conducted by the Center for Cybernetic Neuroscience in Atlanta, Georgia. After "scientists" download hifalutin humanities disciplines into their brains, Romie and his fellow guinea pigs start debating the works of Foucault and hashing out the intricacies of postmodern subjectivity. The enhanced taxidermist, who once aspired to be an artist, returns to his hometown ready to revolutionize his work and revive his failed marriage. As Romie tracks down specimens for his elaborate animatronic taxidermy dioramas, he develops an Ahab-caliber obsession with bagging "Hogzilla," a thousand-pound feral hog that has been terrorizing Hampton County. Cruising hog-hunting websites, he learns that this lab-spawned monster possesses peculiar traits. Pulled into an absurd and murky underworld of biotech operatives, FDA agents, and environmental activists, Romie becomes entangled in the enigma of Hogzilla's origins. Exploring the interplay between nature and culture, biology and technology, reality and art, The New and Improved Romie Futch probes the mysteries of memory and consciousness, offering a darkly comic yet heartfelt take on the contemporary human predicament.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Sophia on April 15, 2015

This was a really interesting read. They aren't joking when they call this a "Southern Gothic tall tale"! The premise was hilarious and the writing was fantastic. Great show from Julia Elliott's first novel...she definitely has a fresh voice, and her writing is wonderfully descriptive. I probably wou......more

Goodreads review by Rachel on April 15, 2015

I loved this book from start to finish. Very smart and witty. I hope the writer has a long career ahead of her!......more

Goodreads review by Gregg on April 18, 2015

by Gregg Chadwick Julia Elliott's new novel, "The New and Improved Romie Futch", takes us on a Southern adventure that seems inspired by the absurdly picaresque world of John Kennedy Toole's "A Confederacy of Dunces", the cyber/ historic cosmography of David Mitchell's "Cloud Atlas", the dangerous sc......more

Goodreads review by Jim on July 18, 2024

Grab your thesaurus, cause you're going to need it. Not because the author is simply displaying her MFA chops, at least, because the main character actually has a legitimate reason for spouting such vocabulary depth and eloquence, as well as throwing about some heavy philosophy and lit crit. It's al......more

Goodreads review by Bill on November 18, 2015

I really loved The Wilds. This almost has my name written all over it. Elliot does a good job with Futch's voice, and he's a taxidermist! Her pop (and not so pop) culture references are totally up my alley. Harry Partch? Sun Ra? Delia Derbyshire? (Funny she felt the need to explain who Derbyshire wa......more