Lightning Rods

Helen DeWitt was born in Washington DC in 1957, but spent most of her childhood in South America. She has a BA and a DPhil in Classics from Oxford University. She worked in a collection of odd jobs while writing the highly acclaimed The Last Samurai, which was published in over twenty countries. Lightning Rods is her second novel to be published. DeWitt lives in Berlin.

'A weird, generous, hilarious marvel.' Teju Cole, author of Open City. --------- 'The question at the heart of the novel: "What do you want?" morphs inexorably into its sinister twin: "How far are you prepared to go?" ... A masterclass in contained satirical exploration.' Sam Byers, TLS ---------'Uproariously funny.' Wall Street Journal ---------- 'DeWitt's wickedly smart satire deserves to be a classic.' Bookforum; "...an entirely unforgettable book. Voice and subject - a sort of bizarre cliche-driven management-speak, and workplace sex, respectively - are so perfectly attuned that it is entirely sui generis. ...it is extremely funny and also utterly serious. It is "sneaky, tendentious and deceptive" - in all the best ways." John Self - Asylum blog; 'Brilliant satire on yes-we-can culture' - The Independent; "an uproarious, razor-sharp novel." The Financial Times; "As it moves inexorably onwards with the cold, hard logic of the free market, Lightning Rods gets ever funnier and more bizarre, its targets loftier and its analysis more acute... Helen DeWitt's Lightning Rods finally takes its place alongside her brilliant debut The Last Samurai and her narrative-disassembling online novel Your Name Here to form the basis of an oeuvre that will, one hopes, be recognised in the future as one of the most interesting of its time." The Daily Telegraph