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“…a heady book, with big ideas about society, politics, academia, and art in the mix…Merrill finds a good balance between the high concept and the visceral thrills…an effective, stylistic balancing act making for a compelling read” - Kirkus Review
“I’ve never come across anything quite like Paranoid Storytelling. It hooked me as much with the sheer originality of its ideas as by the mystery that drives its plot. I can’t stop thinking about this book—its brilliant examination of our society, its surprisingly intimate story—and neither will you. This is a startlingly perceptive, astonishingly nimble, and urgently necessary debut. — Josh Weil, author of What Came West
“Refreshingly intelligent and dug in on what we should probably all be exploring these days as we sort through how to make sense of this crazy world we live in. — Fiona Maazel, author of A Little More Human”
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Our body politic is not just figuratively ill--it's been poisoned. When writer Judson Merrill started researching the new field of cultural immunology because he believed it could diagnose the cause of America's dissolution, he didn’t realize the most prominent researcher in the field would vanish, and that the possible diagnosis would vanish with her. A novel that reads as narrative nonfiction, PARANOID STORYTELLING chronicles the explosive story of Merrill's travels across Europe as he pieces together a trail of research that uncovers a radical explanation for our collective sickness: Paranoia. Rogue information has infected the stories that bind our culture. But the closer Merrill gets to definitive proof, the more enemies he makes and the less certain he becomes that the truth will set us free. In fact, it might just make us sicker.
“…a heady book, with big ideas about society, politics, academia, and art in the mix…Merrill finds a good balance between the high concept and the visceral thrills…an effective, stylistic balancing act making for a compelling read” - Kirkus Review
“I’ve never come across anything quite like Paranoid Storytelling. It hooked me as much with the sheer originality of its ideas as by the mystery that drives its plot. I can’t stop thinking about this book—its brilliant examination of our society, its surprisingly intimate story—and neither will you. This is a startlingly perceptive, astonishingly nimble, and urgently necessary debut. — Josh Weil, author of What Came West
“Refreshingly intelligent and dug in on what we should probably all be exploring these days as we sort through how to make sense of this crazy world we live in. — Fiona Maazel, author of A Little More Human”
——————————————————————————————————
Our body politic is not just figuratively ill--it's been poisoned. When writer Judson Merrill started researching the new field of cultural immunology because he believed it could diagnose the cause of America's dissolution, he didn’t realize the most prominent researcher in the field would vanish, and that the possible diagnosis would vanish with her. A novel that reads as narrative nonfiction, PARANOID STORYTELLING chronicles the explosive story of Merrill's travels across Europe as he pieces together a trail of research that uncovers a radical explanation for our collective sickness: Paranoia. Rogue information has infected the stories that bind our culture. But the closer Merrill gets to definitive proof, the more enemies he makes and the less certain he becomes that the truth will set us free. In fact, it might just make us sicker.