Parasites Like Us

Customer Reviews

• Dark and clever comedy  Nov 27, 2003 (7 of 8 found this helpful)

  Hank Hannah is a professor of anthropology, but he is the antithesis of Indiana Jones. He works at a second-rate university, has difficulty gaining credibility among his academic peers, and is unlucky in love. He finally hits pay dirt when a doctoral student he advises unearths the grave of a prehistoric Clovis hunter. Attempting to dig at the site without the appropriate permissions, Hank winds up in a scuffle with the police that lands him in a minimum security prison. In the meanwhile, the dig unleashes a nasty surprise with worldwide repercussions.

  There is a lot of dark and outlandish humor here, as first-time novelist Adam Johnson pokes fun at academia and our materialistic society. There are many comic scenes of Hank and his students fumbling their way through their research, of Hank's womanizing, carefree father, and of the cop who likes Pomeranians, hates Hank, and raises his kids in boot-camp fashion. Interspersed with the wry humor, however, is a serious message. There are some powerful descriptions of life after the apocalypse. We are reminded of the gloomy forecast for our future if we repeat the history of our Clovis antecedents by destroying our environment and ourselves with it. We get to view ourselves as a future anthropologist would when looking back on our culture through the artifacts of our lives.

  "Parasites Like Us" will make you laugh. But more importantly, it will make you think about what it means to be human. I look forward to other novels by Johnson.

• Best. Book. Ever.   Mar 23, 2005 (6 of 7 found this helpful)

  It was the playwright that got to me. I was already into this book. Digging it, if you will. On page 272, a playwright gets gunned down and, as he dies, he begs our hero to "Find my play." He even tells the hero where to find it and then asks him to make necessary changes. "In Act IV," he instructs, "erase the cruel words that Lonnie speaks. He doesn't mean it. I know that now."
  
  This got to me.
  
  Isn't this one of the reasons we choose to write? For immortality, for recognition even after we die?
  
  As I said, this got to me. I was already thinking that I haven't laughed out loud at a book this much since The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. And amidst my laughter, I am moved. Almost to tears. Moved by a playwright who has suddenly realized that his own life eternal lies in an unproduced manuscript sitting quietly on a shelf beside his bed.
  
  Does telling you about the playwright ruin where Adam Johnson's awe-inspiring book might be heading? Taken out of context, this anecdote doesn't mean anything. You really do have to read this book to understand the gravity and power of the story Mr. Johnson weaves. So what if you know ahead of time that a playwright dies on page 272? Read it anyway because this book is brilliant, and I'm not so sure that "brilliant" is a big enough word to encompass the majesty of this prose.
  
  I almost didn't read it. A review I read turned me off. The review stated that this novel was "so steeped in anthropology that it becomes impossible to read without some prior knowledge of anthropological thought, rendering it, for the layman, impossible to finish." Bull, I say. Despite the anthropology, it's quite accessible. If anything, it's more about philosophy than anthropology, positing that all of us are doctoral candidates of anthropology. Wondering what happened to a friend you haven't seen in ten years, imagining their outcome, a scenario they might have found themselves in based on what you know of the person they were, is, in its own right, a form of anthropology. We use anthropology to revive the dead, see how they lived, learn how they fared. By definition, we are all armchair anthropologists.
  
  Okay, a brief plot recap (hopefully, without ruining anything -- this book is full of moments you don't see coming). Hank Hannah is a down-on-his-luck professor of anthropology at a small college in South Dakota. His focus is on the Clovis, the first known people to reside on North American land, having crossed the ice bridges from Asia during the last Ice Age. His theory is that the wildlife of The Pleistocene Era were not killed off by climactic change or malnutrition, but by the Clovis people, a band of fierce hunters. Hunters who continually hunted their prey until there was nothing left to hunt. One of his students (Brent Eggers, who just might be one of recent literature's greatest creations) is working on a dissertation that requires him to live, for one year, like The Clovis, limiting himself to only the tools and technology that were available during the Pleistocene Era. He camps on the college quadrangle in a make-shift hut, milking the squirrel supply for all it is worth. He also discovers proof that The Clovis existed in the area in the form of an arrowhead and a grave that houses a complete skeleton, found holding a perfect sphere made of clay. This discovery will eventually lead to the eradication of life, starting with pigs, moving on to birds, ending with humans. There's an ill-fated Corvette, a burning hog, a trestle destroyed by a great flood, and a hare-raising toboggan ride through an unspeakable graveyard. But I'm ahead of myself again...
  
  Populated with a vivid cast of eccentric characters this book has the power to move you. To make you laugh. To make you think. To make you insanely glad that Johnson has created a world of fiction. Read this book. Discover its brilliance. Laugh, cry, be shocked, and keep yo

• Johnson Delivers  Aug 29, 2003 (3 of 3 found this helpful)

  Johnson solidifies his reputation as one of America's hot young writers with this powerful follow up to last year's short story collection. This is a book that's got it all--surreal characters and situations, dark humor, social commentary, stunning poetic language, and profound wisdom about what it means to be human at the end of the 20th century.

• Wonderful prose, questionable narrative  Apr 13, 2004 (7 of 9 found this helpful)

  Adam Johnson is gifted writer. Let there be no denying that fact. His prose can take your breath away. His characters were well written, but if you're a fan of contemporary fiction, you will recognize the shadow of a Jimmy Minty or Grady Tripp, borrowed from Russo and Chabon. My biggest gripe concerns the storyline, which really sort of goes down in flames toward the end. Oh, it's worth reading and it will, at moments, leave you shaking your head in appreciation. At the end though, it'll just leave you shaking your head.

• Powerful, Funny, Moving!  Aug 20, 2003 (2 of 2 found this helpful)

  Wow, this book really blew me away. I thought it was just a silly farce at first -- lighthearted fun. But the ending is phenomenal and so real! I am recommending it to all my friends and I can't wait to ready anything else Johnson writes.