H2O: A Novel

By Mark Swartz

'H2O' is the tale of an employee's fight to gain recognition for a potentially life-saving invention: a method for synthesising fake water.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1933368195
• ISBN13: 9781933368191
• Release Date: September 2006
• Publisher: Soft Skull Press
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 0.5" x 5.0"

Customer Reviews

Drink Up!

I suggest reading this book in a hot bath with a nice cold glass of filtered water beside you. Or in the desert of your choice. In a time when everything we take for granted can be bought and sold, a funny edgy noir novel that attacks the commodification of life, and most essentially, water, is just what what the doctor ordered. But be careful; before you take a sip, you may want to determine-- does H20 = water? I have my doubts. Nothing is quite as it seems, but how can you resist a novel that begins with a hotel lobby smelling of "spent fireworks," and later goes on to discuss the relative merits of the competing disciplines of Nearmissology and Closecallology. No doubt there are pages to be written the relationship of the Maltese Fungus to the Maltese Falcon, but in the meantime you can just enjoy the laboratory notes which include "Nuking the fungus," and "Some puzzles have no answers. You actually want to bite your own head." To paraphrase the Canadian poet, Nicole Brossard, two things we are running out of are water and silence. Perhaps some day Swarz will tackle silence for us as well.

Leaves you thirsty for more works from this brilliant new voice!

Set in a future Chicago where the world's supply of potable water has dried up and one man has developed a water-like substitute that may or may not be the answer to the world's water crisis. The story follows the creepy Hayden Shivers, inventor and ex-husband, as he decides whether to hand over his slippery invention to his employer, mega-corporation Drixa, whose souless and seductive HR rep seems bent on getting the goods. Read it. It's good.

Crystalline and effervescent

Not only is H2O the best novel I've read all year, it's the best one I've ever written.