Liquid Snakes (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781593767518)

Finalist for the Libby Book Awards

What if toxic pollutants traveled up the socioeconomic ladder rather than down it? A Black biochemist provides an answer in this wildly original novel of pollution, poison, and dark pleasure

In Atlanta, Kenny Bomar is a biochemist-turned-coffee-shop-owner in denial about his divorce and grieving his stillborn daughter. Chemicals killed their child, leaching from a type of plant the government is hiding in Black neighborhoods. Kenny's coping mechanisms are likewise chemical and becoming more baroque--from daily injections of lethal snake venom to manufacturing designer drugs. As his grief turns corrosive, it taints every person he touches.

Black epidemiologists Retta and Ebonee are called to the scene when a mysterious black substance is found to have killed a high school girl. Investigating these "blackouts" sends the women down separate paths of blame and retribution as two seemingly disparate narratives converge in a cinematic conclusion.

Liquid Snakes is an immersive, white-knuckle ride with the spookiness of speculative fiction and the propulsion of binge-worthy shows like FX's Atlanta and HBO's Random Acts of Flyness. Transfiguring a whodunit plot into a labyrinthine reinterpretation of a crime procedural, Stephen Kearse offers an uncanny commentary on an alternative world, poisoned.

Author: Stephen Kearse
ISBN-10: 159376751X
ISBN-13: 9781593767518
Publisher: Soft Skull
Language: English
Published: 08/08/2023
Pages: 320
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.10lbs
Size: 8.30h x 5.80w x 1.20d

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 06/12/2023
Kirkus Reviews 07/01/2023