40, Alan Heathcock
40, Alan Heathcock
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40

Author: Alan Heathcock

Narrator: Julia Atwood

Unabridged: 8 hr 51 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/02/2022

Synopsis

From the award-winning author Alan Heathcock comes an American myth of the future: a vision of civil war, spectacle, and disaster of biblical proportions.In a future America ravaged by natural disaster, pandemic, and political unrest, a fundamentalist faction emerges. As the Novae Terrae gain power, enticing civilians with bread and circuses, a civil war breaks out between its members and the US government.Mazzy Goodwin, a young soldier, only wants to find her little sister, Ava Lynn. One day, she wakes in a bomb crater to find wings emerged from her back. Has she died? Been gifted wings by God? Undergone a military experiment?The world sees a miracle. Mazzy is coaxed into seeing it as an opportunity: to become the angel-like figurehead of the revolution, in return for being reunited with her sister. Her journey leads her to New Los Angeles, where the Novae have set up the headquarters for their propaganda machine—right in the ruins of Hollywood. Aided by friends old and new, she must navigate a web of deceit while staying true to herself.Told in sharp, haunting prose, as cinematic as it is precise, Alan Heathcock’s 40 is a dizzyingly fantastical novel about the dangers of blind faith, the temptation of spectacle, and the love of family. In a tale by turns mythic and tragic, one heroine must come to terms with the consequences of her decisions—and face the challenges of building a new world.

About Alan Heathcock

Alan Heathcock is the author of the short story collection Volt. His work has appeared in Zoetrope, Virginia Quarterly Review, the Kenyon Review, and Best American Mystery Stories, among other places. He is the winner of a National Magazine Award in fiction.

About Julia Atwood

Julia Atwood is an actor and audiobook narrator who earned her bachelor's degree in classics and psychology from Wheaton College. She went on to attend the Moscow Art Theater’s Stanislavsky Summer School and graduated from Brown University with her master's degree in acting. She is currently based in New York City.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Lori on March 20, 2022

Heathcock's 40 is a book that is both biblically apocalyptic and dystopic in scope and breadth. Mazzy is a solider who awakens in a bomb crater, stunned and unsteady, to find she has suddenly sprouted wings. Uncertain if she's been blessed by a miracle or the victim of experimentation, she's now on......more

Goodreads review by Margaret on July 03, 2022

I was given a free copy in exchange for a review in the Idaho Press. Here is my soon-to-be-published review in full: Alan Heathcock might have chosen not to pursue a career as a pastor, but God is never far from his mind. Just like his highly acclaimed 2011 short story collection "Volt," Boise-based......more

Goodreads review by Jess on October 12, 2022

This book was so wild - it took me about 50% (eek, I know) to get fully into it BUT once I did I was like hooooooly shit. The first half of the book develops a society in a future just ahead of us. The people have lived through wars and pandemics and now they just want hope. Mysteriously children st......more

Goodreads review by J. (JL) on December 10, 2023

This was a solid read. I had just finished The City Inside, so it was kind of a trip switching from a social media dystopia set in India to a religious fundamentalist dystopia set here in the good ol US of A. This book isn't your average run of the mill dystopia book, though, but neither was the Cit......more

Goodreads review by Lou on July 31, 2022

Opens with an immediate scene of visceral significance and rapid succession of things occurring, fire, bombshell, blood and war. This will be a first person narrative with main protagonist Mazzy Goodwin, it’s all in here, love and hope, war and peace, righteous and unrighteous, belief and unbelief, t......more

Quotes

“Heathcock produces striking alchemy…The dystopian ingredients are familiar, but Heathcock combines them in a potent metaphorical stew.” Kirkus Reviews

“The lovely and engaging voice of narrator Julia Atwood gives protagonist Mazzy Goodwyn satisfying emotion. Atwood’s youthful tone fits the girl soldier, and her cadence subtly moves the suspenseful action of this story forward…Atwood delivers all of it compellingly.” AudioFile

“A speculative thriller that glitters with imagination and glows with heart.” Anthony Doerr, # 1 New York Times bestselling author

“An original mythos, a tour de force of metamorphosis and survival. If an angry Flannery O’Connor wrote postapocalyptic fiction with a pen of fire, it might look something like this.” Revecca Makkai, author of The Great Believers

Awards

  • Amazon Editors' Pick
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