The Loony: A Novella of Epic Proportions [Paperback]

Christopher WunderLee (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 26, 2005

Back in 1961, at the height of the Cold War and with the USSR firmly leading the Space Race, President John F. Kennedy vowed to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. It was an audacious promise, one that echoes through US history as one of the most ambitious proposals ever set forth by a president. And, in 1969, history teaches, two Americans softly landed on the moon's Sea of Tranquility. But what if we faked the whole thing? What if the greatest scientific achievement of the 20th century was dramatized on sound stages safely on earth for a naïvely patriotic nation unaccustomed to special effects? It would be the greatest charade in history. One that would be kept so secret, knowledge of the truth could have deadly consequences. The Loony is a book in which history is a Cheshire cat, conspiracy theories fly, and the quagmire of one man's psychosis illuminates a uniquely American obsession with the gray matter of truth.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Christopher WunderLee is a published poet, author, and journalist from Seattle, Washington. His poetry and prose have appeared in numerous journals and magazines, including ZYZZYVA, The Midwest Review, Places, and The Paris/Atlantic. Kalopsia, a collection of his poetry, was published in 2003.

Product Details

• Paperback: 100 pages
• Publisher: Lulu.com (January 26, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1411624505
• ISBN-13: 978-1411624504
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,819,146 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Singing, dancing, cepaceous, all-star AWM, with a head o hair, enjoys catachresis, bovarism, doxography, galimatias, fubbery, ebriection (of which he is afflicted), harmatiology, and nutation (without having to talk back), with didapper acquintances, slight bout of gymnophobia, and a habit of gynotikolobomassophilia, seeks ophelimitic MWBPBYF hierodule for a little inosculation and orthostatic, matutinal paizogony. No pantophobes, please.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Moon Hoax, April 5, 2005

By 

Dr PD (Henderson, NV) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Loony: A Novella of Epic Proportions (Paperback)

I got this book because I'm into the Moon Hoax conspiracy theories. Its become sort of a pass-time of mine, and I heard about this book coming out, and I thought it would be neat to read a novel about it. Only, I didn't know what I was getting myself in to. This book was fun to read. Lots and lots of fun to read. Its hilarious. Its Montie Python does Apollo. There's a scene when the hero of the book drives into the ocean and refuses to be rescued that was one of the funniest things I've read in a long time. And there's some really wacky theories about astronomy that, if you know anything about the subject, are so original, its fun to read.
But there's more to it than that. While I really enjoyed reading it, I also easily became embroiled in the story, and I really enjoyed the way the writer presented the story. Its weird. You get wrapped up in it and you can't figure out where in the world you are. I found myself wondering what the author was presenting a lot, whether or not he/she was trying to present a pro-hoax book, or debunking it, or had his/her own agenda.
The parts about faking the lunar landings are actually brief. There's more about the hero afterwards then during, and I would have liked more about how they faked it. But for the most part, being someone who owns almost every book on this subject, this novel is a welcome contribution.
Anyone interested in the Moon Hoax theories would really like this book, but even if you don't know about the subject, this book delivers a really good story.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Loony is Wonderful, April 28, 2005

By 

Evan (Sac, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Loony: A Novella of Epic Proportions (Paperback)

While everyone is raving about "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" and "Gilead," they are missing out on something truly original, a beautifully written novella by an extremely gifted writer (poet, according to the web). The search for truth amidst a myth, a quest for sense, a mission centered around adoration, this book is a hilarious, maddening, sad exploration of one man's deluded purpose. The hero is an astrophysicist, or so he thinks, caught up in black-mail, caught up in his own constructs, an inventive figure who, with refreshing originality, can't seem to understand the big picture, and we are guided with startlingly involved prose into this unknown world, a world in which we may or may not have faked the Apollo moon missions, we may or may not have killed JFK because of it, we may or may not have done anything we read about in history books. And, therefore, we may or may not "know." The hero doesn't. Not even the narrator seems to be sure. Wunderlee peppers his tricky content with imagery, other voices, ruminations, and dialogue (from when?) that expresses so entertainingly well this confusion. It's brilliant.

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Favorite, September 26, 2007

By 

Chabon "Chabon" (Dearborn, MI) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Loony: A Novella of Epic Proportions (Paperback)

This is easily one of my favorite books of all time. It's so funny and clever, some of it's absurd. Don't believe what it says above. Amazon's citation system must be broken, because there is way more than one book cited. I can count five or six full references in the first few pages (not to mention all the allusions). Obviously a high work of what is being called hysterical realism (Wunderlee shares this genre with Thomas Pynchon, David Foster Wallace, Zadie Smith and others), or maximalism, it is dense and frantic and strange, but ultimately so much fun to read - beautiful.