Gun, with Occasional Music

In the acclaimed novel by Jonathan Lethem, a phantasmagoric future world is described as if the author has just returned from there. This world is real and concrete. New drugs are not only legalized, but mandatory for every well-meaning citizen. Individual cards showing one’s karma level and freezers for those who have lost their karma. Turned animals: kangaroos, sheep, and cows—products of the evolutionary therapy method; now anyone can walk on two legs and speak. There is no police—only the Inquisition and its inquisitors, both state and private. In the course of investigating a murder, the private inquisitor Conrad Metcalf is drawn into behind-the-scenes games of the all-powerful Inquisition—and an even more powerful future mafia...