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Orphans

Name: Orphans
Brand: Northern Illinois University Press
SKU: 9780875806952
Price: 17.99 USD
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Contributors:

Ben Tanzer

Publisher:

Northern Illinois University Press

Binding:

Paperback

Book Category:

Fiction

Book Subcategory:

Science Fiction, Fantasy

Series:

Switchgrass Books

Award:

2014 Midwest Book Award (MIPA) Winner - Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror Award, 2015 Independent Publisher Book Awards Bronze Medal Winner - Science Fiction Award

Audience:

Young Adult

Shipping & Return +

The product is eligible for a complimentary return within 30 days from the date of purchase. Furthermore, individual items are shipped within 24 hours of receiving the order.

Rating and Reviews +

Specifications +

Release Date:

2013-11-01

ISBN 13:

9780875806952

Weight:

0.45 lbs

Size:

7.99 x 5.08 x 0.53 inches

Pages:

170

Mint Condition +

product description

Description

With Orphans, Ben Tanzer continues his ongoing literary survey of the twenty-first-century male psyche, yet does so with a newfound twist, contemporary themes set in a world that is anything but. In this dystopian tale of a future Chicago, workers are sent off to sell property on Mars to those who can afford to leave, leaving what's left to those who have little choice but to make do with what's left behind: burnt out neighborhoods, black helicopters policing the streets, flash mobs, the unemployed in their scruffy suits, robots taking the few jobs that remain, and clones who replace those workers who do find work so that a modicum of family stability can be maintained. It is a story about the impact of work on family. How work warps our best intentions. And how everything we think we know about ourselves looks different during a recession.

This idea is writ large in the world of Orphans, where recession is all we know, work is only available to the lucky few, and this lucky few not only need to fear being replaced on the job, but in their homes and beds. It is also a story about drugs, surfing, punk music, lost youth, parenting, sex, pop culture as vernacular, and a conscious intersection of Death of a Salesman or Glengarry Glen Ross with the Martian Chronicles.

Looking to the genre of science fiction has allowed Tanzer to produce something new and fresh, expanding both his literary horizons, and the potential market for his work. Tanzer also looks to the story of Bartleby the Scrivener with Orphans, and the question of what are we allowed as workers, and expected to be, or do, when work is fraught with desperation. Ultimately, Orphans is intended to be a contemporary story about manhood and what it means in today's world, told from the perspective of work and family, and how any of us manage the parameters that family and work produce; but it's a story told in a futuristic world, where our greatest fears are in fact already realized, because there isn't enough of anything, and we are all too easily replaced.

About the Author

Ben Tanzer is a prolific novelist and an Emmy Award-winning public service announcement writer. He lives in Chicago where he lives with his family. Visit him at bentanzer.blogspot.com

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