Square Wave

American democracy is on its knees. The upcoming election could well be the last and the nation is braced for internal conflict.Meanwhile, on urban patrol, a nightwatchman discovers the latest in a series of prostitutes beaten and left for dead by a mysterious assailant.Meanwhile, his research into his family's past leads him to Sri Lanka under colonialism, with all its echoes of factional divisions and authoritarian rule.Meanwhile, his colleague is implicated in a scheme to reverse-engineer storm dispersal technology and weaponise the weather.Meanwhile, meanwhile, meanwhile: from its basis in a dystopian future and its focus on one man in pursuit of another, Square Wave expands its scope and expands again-into history, musicology, geopolitics-to observe the varieties of decay that emerge from the militarisation of the human mind. The result is a novel that KCRW's Michael Silverblatt calls "e;the most extraordinary debut in fiction that I've encountered in many years... even when I had to suspend comprehension and travel beyond my comfort zone."e;