At the bitter end of the 1960s, after surviving multiple assassination attempts, President John F. Kennedy has created a vast federal agency, the Psych Corps, dedicated to maintaining the nation`s mental hygiene by any means necessary. Soldiers returning from Vietnam have their battlefield traumas ”enfolded”- wiped from their memories through drugs & therapy
- while veterans too damaged to be enfolded roam at will in Michigan, evading the Psych Corps & reenacting atrocities on civilians. This destabilized, alternate version of American history is the vision of the twenty-two-year-old veteran Eugene Allen, who has returned from Vietnam to write the book at the center of Hystopia, the long-awaited first novel by David Means. In Hystopia, Means brings his full talent to bear on the crazy reality of trauma, both national & personal. Outlandish & tender, funny & violent, timely & historical, Hystopia invites us to consider whether our traumas can ever be truly overcome. The answers it offers are wildly inventive, deeply rooted in its characters, & wrung from the author`s own heart.