Customer Reviews

Parasites Like Us

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Hank Hannah is a professor of anthropology, but he is the antithesis of Indiana Jones. He works at a second-rate university, has difficulty gaining credibility among his academic peers, and is unlucky in love. He finally hits pay dirt when a doctoral student he advises unearths the grave of a prehistoric Clovis hunter. Attempting to dig at the site without the appropriate permissions, Hank winds up in a scuffle with the police that lands him in a minimum security prison. In the meanwhile, the dig unleashes a nasty surprise with worldwide repercussions.

There is a lot of dark and outlandish humor here, as first-time novelist Adam Johnson pokes fun at academia and our materialistic society. There are many comic scenes of Hank and his students fumbling their way through their research, of Hank's womanizing, carefree father, and of the cop who likes Pomeranians, hates Hank, and raises his kids in boot-camp fashion. Interspersed with the wry humor, however, is a serious message. There are some powerful descriptions of life after the apocalypse. We are reminded of the gloomy forecast for our future if we repeat the history of our Clovis antecedents by destroying our environment and ourselves with it. We get to view ourselves as a future anthropologist would when looking back on our culture through the artifacts of our lives.

"Parasites Like Us" will make you laugh. But more importantly, it will make you think about what it means to be human. I look forward to other novels by Johnson.

Wow, this book really blew me away. I thought it was just a silly farce at first -- lighthearted fun. But the ending is phenomenal and so real! I am recommending it to all my friends and I can't wait to ready anything else Johnson writes.

Or at least civilization.

Adam Johnson's wondrously funny novel reaches into the murky depths of academia, where the next publication is the most important one, where the next discovery can make or break your career, and drags to the surface the deep-seated politics and rivalries of the academic department.

Anthropologist and Professor Hank Hannah believes that by studying the lost people of the planet, he can understand how he loses the people he loves, but his day-to-day life is far more prosaic as he grades undergrad papers and writes grant proposals than any Indiana Jones adventure. His graduate student, Eggers, goes native to better understand the ancient people he's studying and becomes a celebrity in academic journals. To do this, Eggers sets up camp in the university park, subsisting off roots, berries, grubs, and whatever he can catch in his snares, which includes squirrels and Pomeranians. He is, however, raiding vending machines on campus because no one can live like that. When Eggers finds a Clovis Point, a perfect spear tip, on grounds belonging to a Native American casino, they decide to dig in secret. What they find ends civilization.

Johnson's book Parasites Like Us is a smart, funny inquiry into the nature of competition and depletion in our culture. If you liked Fluke by Christoper Moore, try this one. For the over-educated misanthrope, it's a must-must-must read.

TK Kenyon
Author of Rabid: A Novel and Callous: A Novel

Johnson does an excellent job of capturing the essence of an eccentric college professor and his equally odd and interesting students, probably because he is a professor himself. Each character is beautifully portrayed, shortcomings included.

To me, the best part of this novel occurs just when you think it's slowly winding down, just when you begin to loose interest: it hits you! Perhaps even better is HOW it hits you, it doesn't simply get laid out for you; you're left with more questions than answers, and feelings of helplessness and isolation--similar to real life.

Another reason this book gets five stars is how intelligently it is written. Johnson masters the English language in every sentence, selecting the most precise word to convey his story. No cliché, overused, mundane phrases here.

Overall a great book that proffers an interesting theory about the "depletionist" nature of humankind, through an incredible and unique novel.

Johnson solidifies his reputation as one of America's hot young writers with this powerful follow up to last year's short story collection. This is a book that's got it all--surreal characters and situations, dark humor, social commentary, stunning poetic language, and profound wisdom about what it means to be human at the end of the 20th century.

It was the playwright that got to me. I was already into this book. Digging it, if you will. On page 272, a playwright gets gunned down and, as he dies, he begs our hero to "Find my play." He even tells the hero where to find it and then asks him to make necessary changes. "In Act IV," he instructs, "erase the cruel words that Lonnie speaks. He doesn't mean it. I know that now."

This got to me.

Isn't this one of the reasons we choose to write? For immortality, for recognition even after we die?

As I said, this got to me. I was already thinking that I haven't laughed out loud at a book this much since The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. And amidst my laughter, I am moved. Almost to tears. Moved by a playwright who has suddenly realized that his own life eternal lies in an unproduced manuscript sitting quietly on a shelf beside his bed.

Does telling you about the playwright ruin where Adam Johnson's awe-inspiring book might be heading? Taken out of context, this anecdote doesn't mean anything. You really do have to read this book to understand the gravity and power of the story Mr. Johnson weaves. So what if you know ahead of time that a playwright dies on page 272? Read it anyway because this book is brilliant, and I'm not so sure that "brilliant" is a big enough word to encompass the majesty of this prose.

I almost didn't read it. A review I read turned me off. The review stated that this novel was "so steeped in anthropology that it becomes impossible to read without some prior knowledge of anthropological thought, rendering it, for the layman, impossible to finish." Bull, I say. Despite the anthropology, it's quite accessible. If anything, it's more about philosophy than anthropology, positing that all of us are doctoral candidates of anthropology. Wondering what happened to a friend you haven't seen in ten years, imagining their outcome, a scenario they might have found themselves in based on what you know of the person they were, is, in its own right, a form of anthropology. We use anthropology to revive the dead, see how they lived, learn how they fared. By definition, we are all armchair anthropologists.

Okay, a brief plot recap (hopefully, without ruining anything -- this book is full of moments you don't see coming). Hank Hannah is a down-on-his-luck professor of anthropology at a small college in South Dakota. His focus is on the Clovis, the first known people to reside on North American land, having crossed the ice bridges from Asia during the last Ice Age. His theory is that the wildlife of The Pleistocene Era were not killed off by climactic change or malnutrition, but by the Clovis people, a band of fierce hunters. Hunters who continually hunted their prey until there was nothing left to hunt. One of his students (Brent Eggers, who just might be one of recent literature's greatest creations) is working on a dissertation that requires him to live, for one year, like The Clovis, limiting himself to only the tools and technology that were available during the Pleistocene Era. He camps on the college quadrangle in a make-shift hut, milking the squirrel supply for all it is worth. He also discovers proof that The Clovis existed in the area in the form of an arrowhead and a grave that houses a complete skeleton, found holding a perfect sphere made of clay. This discovery will eventually lead to the eradication of life, starting with pigs, moving on to birds, ending with humans. There's an ill-fated Corvette, a burning hog, a trestle destroyed by a great flood, and a hare-raising toboggan ride through an unspeakable graveyard. But I'm ahead of myself again...

Populated with a vivid cast of eccentric characters this book has the power to move you. To make you laugh. To make you think. To make you insanely glad that Johnson has created a world of fiction. Read this book. Discover its brilliance. Laugh, cry, be shocked, and keep your eyes alert for burning pyres.

This is the best book I've read this year. You've got: frozen South Dakota, a deputy sheriff with a chip on his shoulder and a pack of yappy Pomeranian pups at his feet, a university town, an anthropology graduate student trying to live his dissertation as a primitive man in the quad (but aren't those undergrad women leaving his hut in the mornings!?), an illegal archeological dig at the foot of the Thunderbird Casino (hence "Keno man"). Throw in a Corvette, a GTO, a custom van, and Dr. Hannah, a love smitten anthropologist who narrates these, the end days of North American civilization and you've got a great read. From the first chuck of the Clovis point spear at the 4-H prize pig, you'll be hooked. I found myself laughing out loud on public transportation. Adam Johnson's imagination is boundless.

I bought "Parasites Like Us" to read on boring watches while crossing the Sea of Cortez. Instead I started it on watch and continued reading it during the time I was supposed to be asleep. It's just too good to put down. Adam Johnson reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut. The same sort of off-the-wall humor with a serious message delivered in simple and magnificent prose. The characters are great. Eggers the "Clovis live-a-like" must be the smelliest human being ever to fall out of a writer's imagination, and Dr. Hannah is a hoot, but my personal favorite is Gerry, a mild, antagonistic cop who spends a great deal of this time protecting his kids from the truth about their mother. This is a hard book if you love bacon, but it will sled you through many emotions and leave you with lots to think about.

Ok, just a little inside joke there, for people who have read the book.....

What a great story! I've read a lot of "plague takes mankind" books, and this one has by far blown most of them out of the water. A really well written story, laugh out loud funny when you least expect it, and all around satisfying reading. I recommend it hugely.

The story had alot of promise, but it just dragged. The characters were uninteresting, seemed very flat, and had little chemistry. The dialogue felt very forced. It's been a while since I have read this book, but at one point, I glanced at the page number, which was near 200, and thought to myself, "Wow, nothing interesting has happened." I'm sure he had good ideas/plans for this, but it was executed poorly, which may be harsh, but it didn't work for me. I did read his collection Emporium, which I would recommend over this book.