Nature of the Beast: A Graphic Novel [Paperback]

Adam Mansbach (Author), Douglas McGowan (Author), Owen Brozman (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 20, 2012

An alien race of religious extremists plan to honor their deity
through the ritualistic annihilation of our planet. The only man who
knows this is Milan Marlowe, an unstoppable media baron who sees
opportunity everywhere.

Earth’s only move is to engage the invaders according to their
holy law and issue The Challenge of the Heretic—a winner-take-all
gladiator battle for our right to exist. Marlowe launches Beast Wars,
a televised interspecies tournament designed to select Earth’s
mightiest champion. On a decadent private island, sharks, lions,
gorillas, and polar bears square off to the delight of screaming
fans oblivious to the sky-high stakes.

Enter Bruno Bolo—single father, blues belter, and alligator wrestler
from the swamps of Florida. Beset by personal demons, corporatized
killer sharks, Yeats-quoting pit fighters, and looming alien eradicators,
Bruno will emerge as our desperate planet’s final hope.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Soft Skull Press; Original edition (March 20, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1593762453
• ISBN-13: 978-1593762452
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 6.1 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,094,190 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Adam Mansbach's most recent book, Go the F*ck to Sleep, is a #1 New York Times bestseller, and one of the most talked-about books of the decade. A viral sensation that shot to #1 on Amazon.com months before the book was even available, GTFTS has also topped bestseller lists in many of the other thirty-plus countries in which it's been published, and is forthcoming as a feature film from Fox 2000.

Mansbach's last novel, The End of the Jews, won the 2008 California Book Award and was long-listed for the IMPAC-Dublin Prize. His previous novel, Angry Black White Boy, was a San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2005; it is taught at more than eighty universities and was adapted into a prize-winning stage play. He is also the author of the novel Shackling Water, the poetry collection genius b-boy cynics getting weeded in the garden of delights, and A Fictional History of the United States With Huge Chunks Missing, an anthology of original short stories which he co-edited with T Cooper.

An inaugural recipient of the Ford Foundation's Future Aesthetics Artist Grant, Mansbach is the 2009-2011 New Voices Professor of Fiction at Rutgers University. The founding editor of the pioneering 1990s hip hop journal Elementary, his fiction and essays have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Esquire, The Believer, The Boston Globe, The Los Angeles Times Book Review, N+1, Vibe, and JazzTimes, and been widely anthologized. Mansbach's forthcoming projects include a graphic novel, Nature of the Beast, forthcoming from Soft Skull Press in 2012, and a new novel, Rage is Back. He lives in Berkeley, California, and is a frequent lecturer on college campuses across the country.