Customer Reviews

The Soul of America

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I just finished reading Abraham King's The Soul of America and had to just sit and wonder. This is one of those books that will keep you spellbound until the very last page. To call it a page turner is an understatement. I defy anyone to willingly put this book down in the last hundred pages.
Mr. King has written a novel that anyone concerned with the future of America should read. King has cleverly created composite caricatures of all the major right wing players from the government, to the business world, to organized religion, and paramilitary groups, and woven them into a story that could be in our not too far future. All the while poking fun at these groups and individuals that will have you laughing out loud.
The Soul of America is certainly a satire. And as with all satires there is an underlying moral to this story. But it is subtle and surprising. Your view of the entire book may change in the last few pages.
Mr. King is Ayn Rand without the preachy philosophy and if she had a sense of humor.

Great book. I loved it until it hurt, since it tells a lot of truths about the tragedy America is being subjected to by rightwingers. I get a lot of uninvited books sent to me. I give them a few pages and if they don't grab me, they're toast. This one grabbed me like the DaVinci Code did, and I had to finish it.

If you liked The Librarian, or Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything Illuminated, there's a good chance you'll like this tongue in cheek political adventure.

The subtle ending took me by surprise, but after a little thought, it was very realistic.

If this satire of life in America today doesn't wake you up, you must be dead. It's hard to laugh at the truth, and this book makes you do just that. Mr. King tells it like it is, even if we don't like it. It's sad some people won't understand what this book is all about!!!
Even if you don't agree with his ideas, you have to look at his point of view and consider the consequences of the future.

Imagine playing a high stakes poker game with a very special deck. You are dealt cards picturing the following places: (A) corporate headquarters, (K) flea market, (Q) megachurch, (J) paramilitary group and (J) power broker's club. Only one card marks the soul of America but only the dealer knows which one. Ante up.

Abraham King's new novel, The Soul of America from Savannah's Seedtime Press takes place at all those locations. Faces populate each location, like cards in a promising poker hand. The ideas found in the locations are the real characters that King develops. They are born, grow, use resources and compete with each other. They can be stimulating, exciting, compelling, consuming, cutthroat, vicious, domineering and vengeful. Readers will recognize them easily. We live among them every day. Sometimes, they define who we are and sometimes, they consume us. Always, they affect our lives and the less we are aware of them, the more treacherous the effect.

Aware or not, we are the purveyors of the ideas that King characterizes. If we are to get control over the meanings of our lives, however, we must first understand the priorities we have accepted. Awareness, then, is the theme of the novel. King gets us there not with a preachy polemic, but with exaggeration that is simultaneously hilarious and pathetic. Like a social histologist, he magnifies the idea-characters until they become bigger-than-life, so big that we can't escape their existence in our own priorities.

There is a story line with suspense compelling enough to drive readers to the climax, but the surprising climax drives us right back to the text. Have my friends and I fallen for this or that idea? Where else have we gone wrong? Where are we going wrong now? What are our alternatives? What are my alternatives? It's as if you called King's bet by reading his novel. Then after exposing your life through the memories it evoked, you wait for him to lay down his hand. At the end, there they all are: the corporation, the market, the church, the fringe clique and the plutocrats. Read `em and weep...and laugh...and have a great hilarious and insightful romp through King's book.

In this exceptionally funny, yet deadly serious satirical novel, author Abraham King takes us on a wild journey--from the aisles of the flea market to the halls of political and corporate power--in search of the soul of America. In the tradition of Dickens and Vonnegut, King relies heavily on caricature and hyperbole to tell a tale of the struggle between the forces of greed, hubris and ambition on the one hand, and selflessness, virtue and humility on the other.

Multiple storylines revolve around the central plot in which John Brown, a corporate executive, must stop a flesh-eating computer virus that threatens to destroy civilization. The virus is unleashed when the powerful computer chip it has infected, the Octopus, is installed in the desk of the company's founder and patriarch, Montague Millstone. Brown is confronted with the toughest decision of his life as he determines that there is only one way to neutralize it.

Montague Millstone is an ego-driven businessman obsessed with empire and acquisition. His narcissism leads him to believe he can achieve immortality as he transfers all of his bodily functions into his desk. For this reason, he is determined to eliminate the "death tax", a levy applied exclusively to multi-million dollar estates, so as not to lose any control over any piece of his property when his frail, human body finally expires. Assisting him in this endeavor are a variety of corporate lobbyists, his own privately-funded "think tanks", and any number of congressmen beholden to him for his generous campaign contributions.

Complementing the main plot are a variety of subplots involving Christian and Islamic clergymen, a self-styled revolutionary, a sinister consultant, a selfless, flea market vendor, and a cast of powerfully-drawn, minor characters. These subplots are brilliantly interwoven with the main plot to create a tapestry of life in modern America.

A complex, multi-layered book, replete with metaphors and references to purely American events and personalities, The Soul of America challenges the reader to question conventional wisdom and the images created by the mainstream media. And although the humor is dark, the book is hopeful, as a spiritual undertone threads its way though to the end, where we discover the soul of America.