*Best New Science Fiction for Summer by┬аThe Washington Post
*A Most-Anticipated book of 2017 by┬аThe Millions
Everyone else knows the truth about you, now you can know it, too.
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ThatтАЩs the slogan. The product: a junky contraption that tattoos personalized revelations on its usersтАЩ forearms. ItтАЩs an old con, playing on the fear that we are obvious to everybody except ourselves. This particular ad has been circulating New York since the 1960s and it works. But, oddly enough, so might the device...
A small stream of city dwellers buy into this cult of the epiphany machine, including Venter LowoodтАЩs parents. This stigma follows them when they move upstate, where Venter canтАЩt avoid the whispers of teachers and neighbors any more than he can ignore the machineтАЩs accurate predictions: his motherтАЩs abandonment and his fatherтАЩs disinterest. So when VenterтАЩs grandmother finally asks him to confront the epiphany machine and inoculate himself against his familyтАЩs mistakes, heтАЩs only too happy to oblige.
Like his parents before him, Venter is quick to fall under the spell of the deviceтАЩs sweat-stained, profane, and surprisingly charming operator, Adam Lyons. But unlike them, Venter gets close enough to Adam to learn a dark secret. ThereтАЩs an undeniable pattern between specific epiphanies and violent crimes. And Adam wonтАЩt jeopardize the privacy of his customers by alerting the police.
It may be a hoax, but that doesnтАЩt mean what Adam is selling isnтАЩt also spot-on. And in this sprawling, snarling tragicomedy about accountability in contemporary America, the greater danger is that Adam LyonтАЩs apparatus may just be right about us all. This is "can't-miss pop culture."(Vox)
Sciencefiction en fantasy