"An unforgettable debut. Mancusi is a writer to watch." (Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel)
A young philosophy professor finds himself in the middle of a drug-running operation after his personal life derails in this taut white-knuckle debut for fans of Breaking Bad.
Oscar Boatwright, a disenchanted philosophy professor, receives terrible news. His mother, on her way home from Hawaii with Oscar's father, has died mid-flight, her body cooling for hours until the plane can land.
Deeply grieving, Oscar feels his life slipping out of his control. A seemingly innocuous one-night stand with a woman named Dawn becomes volatile when, on the first day of classes, he realizes she is his student and later learns that she is a fledgling campus drug lord. To make matters worse, his family is in debt, having lost their modest savings to a self-help guru who had indoctrinated Oscar's mother by preying on her depression. Desperate to help his family, Oscar breaks with his academic personality - he agrees to help Dawn with a drug run.
A Philosophy of Ruin rumbles with brooding nihilism, then it cracks like a whip, hurtling Oscar and Dawn toward a terrifying threat on the road. Can Oscar halt the acceleration of chaos? Or was his fate never in his control?
Taut, ferocious and blazingly intelligent, A Philosophy of Ruin is a heart-pounding thrill ride into the darkest corners of human geography and a philosophical reckoning with the forces that determine our destiny.
Genre: Mystery
A young philosophy professor finds himself in the middle of a drug-running operation after his personal life derails in this taut white-knuckle debut for fans of Breaking Bad.
Oscar Boatwright, a disenchanted philosophy professor, receives terrible news. His mother, on her way home from Hawaii with Oscar's father, has died mid-flight, her body cooling for hours until the plane can land.
Deeply grieving, Oscar feels his life slipping out of his control. A seemingly innocuous one-night stand with a woman named Dawn becomes volatile when, on the first day of classes, he realizes she is his student and later learns that she is a fledgling campus drug lord. To make matters worse, his family is in debt, having lost their modest savings to a self-help guru who had indoctrinated Oscar's mother by preying on her depression. Desperate to help his family, Oscar breaks with his academic personality - he agrees to help Dawn with a drug run.
A Philosophy of Ruin rumbles with brooding nihilism, then it cracks like a whip, hurtling Oscar and Dawn toward a terrifying threat on the road. Can Oscar halt the acceleration of chaos? Or was his fate never in his control?
Taut, ferocious and blazingly intelligent, A Philosophy of Ruin is a heart-pounding thrill ride into the darkest corners of human geography and a philosophical reckoning with the forces that determine our destiny.
Genre: Mystery
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Used availability for Nicholas Mancusi's A Philosophy of Ruin