Not since Don DeLillo and George Saunders has a writer caught the humor and irreverent seriousness of the zeitgeist like Barkan through his protagonist Paul Berger, a flawed hero whose so-called fate is driving him toward enlightenment just as surely as it is propelling him to destruction. Berger is stunned when he receives a horrible palm reading from a savvy guru at a health retreat in Iowa, of all places. And now it seems the prophecy is coming true. His fiancee, a former soap opera actress, is about to leave him and is shot at a historic reenactment of the Revolutionary War in Concord.His astronaut brother dies on September 11 in the Pentagon. And his most famous brother is about to kidnap him, in a media campaign, to win an election. But is Paul's life really controlled by fate? Or is the prophecy a lie he has latched onto ever since he was almost famous, when his band went under? And what is he going to do to fight back against the lies and misfortune of the culture surrounding him?""Blind Speed"" is a wildly entertaining exploration of intersecting lives in which what happens is never solely by either chance or choice. Barkan has built a uniquely American Aeneid, a thoroughly twisted journey of discovery that pops and fires from its first shot heard round the world to its last rifle blast, echoing across the deep night of the heartland. With global warming, September 11, and ecoterrorism, the novel dives into epic ideas, experimenting with form and capturing America in all its dangerous myths. It's no wonder Saul Bellow was one of the first to praise Barkan's writing.
