For readers of Gary Shteyngart, Jennifer Egan, Nathan Hill, and Gabrielle Zevin-a literary novel with bite, heart, humor, and a voice all its own. San Francisco, the late 1990s. The internet is minting millionaires, Critical Mass is clogging the streets, and the hype sounds a lot like today’s. Enter Joe Hart-former revolutionary, current hustler, lousy father. When Joe bets his daughter Emma’s fortune on an insider stock tip, he sets in motion a story of schemers and dreamers, artists and avengers, in a city on the brink of everything. Emma-sharp, funny, and quietly fierce-finds her true family among the city’s troublemakers: a Polish performance artist with dynamite in her heart, a former revolutionary teaching women the art of the counterstrike, and a Vietnam bomb-defuser who’s seen this movie before. Social history with a grin, a fairy tale with teeth, and pure pleasure page to page, The Big Chihuahua is a book to root for, full of characters you’ll hate to leave.
