Amnesia Moon

1995 novel by Jonathan Lethem

Amnesia Moon

First edition cover

Author| Jonathan Lethem
Cover artist| Jacket design by Alexander Munn and Steven Cooley
Jacket illustration by Alexander Munn
Language| English
Genre| Science fiction novel
Publisher| Harcourt Brace & Co.

Publication date

| September 1995
Publication place| United States
Media type| Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
Pages| 247 pp (first edition, hardcover)
ISBN| 0-15-100091-3 (first edition, hardcover)
OCLC| 32012520

Dewey Decimal

| 813/.54 20
LC Class| PS3562.E8544 A8 1995
Preceded by| Gun, with Occasional Music
Followed by| The Wall of the Sky, the Wall of the Eye

Amnesia Moon is a 1995 novel by Jonathan Lethem. Lethem adapted the novel from several unpublished short stories he had written, all about catastrophic, apocalyptic events. When Tor Books published the second edition in 1996, they commissioned Michael Koelsch to illustrate a new cover art; Koelsch had previously illustrated Lethem's previous book cover art Gun, with Occasional Music.[1][2]

## Plot

[edit]

The protagonist is a survivalist named Chaos, who lives in an abandoned megaplex in Wyoming after an apparent nuclear strike. The residents of his town of Hatfork are reliant on a sinister messianic figure named Kellogg for food. Kellogg also has powerful dreams, which he transfers into the minds of others. Chaos's mind is especially receptive, making him reluctant to sleep.

Both Lethem and Chaos abandon this premise early on, and Chaos also goes by the name of "Everett Moon", depending on where he is. The novel plays with several other dystopian and post-apocalyptic setups. One area is covered in a thick green fog, save for an exclusive private school. Vacaville, California, has converted to a luck-based social system, taken to totalitarian extremes.

Amnesia Moon bears homage to Philip K. Dick. During a party scene, one guest describes a battle of wills in West Marin, and another cites a West Marin inhabitant named "Hoppington", both references to Dick's Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb. Vacaville is reminiscent of Dick's Solar Lottery, where society is also based on chance. When Moon and Melinda reach San Francisco, hallucinogenic drugs play a role in altered perceptions that provide access to other characters in this world, as in The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. Elsewhere, it is argued that the depicted realities splintered away from each other to provide resistance to a hive-like alien invasion of Earth. Such solipsistic worlds are reminiscent of Dick's early novel Eye in the Sky.

The one constant throughout is the idea that reality is shaped by powerful and charismatic "dreamers". The reason for the break in realities, and Chaos/Moon's place in this world, is a unifying mystery.

## Secondary bibliography

[edit]

* Rossi, Umberto. "From Dick to Lethem: The Dickian Legacy, Postmodernism, and Avant-Pop in Jonathan Lethem's Amnesia Moon", Science-Fiction Studies # 86, 29:1, March 2002, 15-33.

## See also

[edit]

* Simulated reality

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "Summary Bibliography: Michael Koelsch". Internet Speculative Fiction Database. Archived from the original on August 30, 2017. Retrieved August 26, 2020.
2. ^ "Amnesia Moon". Internet Speculative Fiction Database. Archived from the original on August 27, 2020. Retrieved August 27, 2020.

## External links

[edit]

* Amnesia Moon title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

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Jonathan Lethem

Novels|

* Gun, with Occasional Music
* Amnesia Moon
* As She Climbed Across the Table
* Girl in Landscape
* Motherless Brooklyn
* The Fortress of Solitude
* You Don't Love Me Yet
* Chronic City
* Dissident Gardens
* A Gambler's Anatomy
* The Feral Detective
* The Arrest
* Brooklyn Crime Novel

Collections|

* The Wall of the Sky, the Wall of the Eye
* Kafka Americana
* Men and Cartoons
* How We Got Insipid

Nonfiction|

* Believeniks!: 2005: The Year We Wrote a Book About the Mets
* The Disappointment Artist
* They Live
* The Ecstasy of Influence: Nonfictions, Etc.
* The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick (Editor)
* Talking Heads' Fear of Music

Comics|

* Omega the Unknown

Co-authors|

* Carter Scholz
* Christopher Sorrentino

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*[LC Class]: Library of Congress Classification
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