Kapow! [Paperback]

Adam Thirlwell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 5, 2012

Unfolding, turning and spinning, Kapow! is a new book by best-selling British writer Adam Thirlwell.

Kapow! takes place in the thick of the Arab Spring, guided by the highspeed monologue of an unnamed narrator – over-doped, over-caffeinated, over-weight – trying to make sense of this history in real time: with 24 hour broadcasts, YouTube films, lesbian bars in London’s East End and far too many newspaper clippings. A clever, funny and bitingly critical cultural commentary, using spinning digressions to tell the stories of a group of interconnected characters in London and Egypt, each transformed by the idea of revolution.

Beautifully and thoughtfully designed by Studio Frith, hailed by the New York Times as the “go-to graphic designer”, Kapow! asks readers to open and unfold pages, to follow text leaking in and out of paragraphs, to discover more and more visual surprises, while progressively becoming part of and lost within the narrator’s giddy digressions.

Kapow! is a beautifully crafted object told in Thirlwell’s uniquely acrobatic voice: a visually immersive storytelling experience like no other.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Thirlwell weaves a spinning cultural commentary of interconnectedness, while Kerr renders increasingly erratic passages with acrobatic typography. The result is a structured chaos of stories within stories, impossible to put down."—Alexis Moshakis, The New York Times

"An intoxicating and dead-smart spin."—Dazed and Confused

"At the start, Kapow! looks and reads like a typical novel. It follows an overweight, neurotic British narrator reading about the Arab Spring in London, 'trying to make sense of this history in real time,' piecing together information from a cab driver friend, the news, and his imagination. But keep reading, and you’ll find the main narrative leaps around—quite literally—as other story lines crash loudly onto the page. Oddly formatted pieces of text appear in the body, following characters in Egypt. Some paragraphs flip upside down, while others melt into shapes that cut straight through the main structure. Fold-out accordion pages let text fall across 12 inches of paper....It’s a clever way of reframing the fractious contemporary news cycle....Though the book draws on a rich history of visual writing....it may be the first novel to mimic how we read in the digital age."—FastCompany

"Could this be the craziest novel you’ll ever read in print?"—Mashable

"A playful novel of typographic tricks."—The Independent

"Take that linear narratives!"—Creative Review

About the Author

Adam Thirlwell is the author of two novels, Politics and The Escape, and a book on the international art of the novel. He is the guest editor of an issue of McSweeney's magazine, to come out in Winter 2012. He lives in London.

Product Details

• Paperback: 190 pages
• Publisher: Visual Editions (June 5, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0956569234
• ISBN-13: 978-0956569233
• Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 0.4 x 8.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #135,227 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Adam Thirlwell was born in London in 1978. He is the author of two novels, Politics and The Escape, and a book on the international art of the novel, which won a Somerset Maugham Award. In 2003, he was chosen by Granta magazine as one of the Best Young British Novelists. His work is translated into 30 languages.