Immobility

Josef Horkai wakes, remembering nothing of his circumstances except for an apocalyptic event known as the Kollaps, and is dispatched to find a mysterious stolen cylinder in a postapocalyptic landscape whose intensity and chilling details rival those of A Canticle for Leibowitz. Uncertain who or what he is, unable to distinguish true memories from dreams, Horkai faces his own physical limitations as a paraplegic as well as a quest whose purpose is ambiguous and laid upon him by people he does not know or trust. Prose honed to a razor sharpness carries him through a broken landscape of menace and despair that never brightens. Grim and unrelenting, this compelling book will darken the mood of even the most lighthearted readers as Evenson (The Open Curtain) drives it toward an inevitable but still surprising ending. Agent: Matt McGowan, Frances Goldin Literary Agency. (Apr.)