Description:
Archaeologist Archibald Shechner hears a singular voice breaking into his head. The Novel is anchored in both cultural and natural history, suggesting a hopeful guide for "blind" evolution.
Brief description: David Rosenberg is the coauthor and editor of the NYT bestsellers The Book of J (with Harold Bloom) and Congregation. He has a Guggenheim for nonfiction, a PEN prize for A Poet's Bible, a Hopwood Special Award in poetry, a Canada Council grant, etc. Born in Detroit, dual nationality since 1981, Israeli-American, he and Rhonda have lived since the '90s in Miami, within proximity of the Everglades.
Review Quotes:
This sweepingly vast and courageous new novel tells of a lost archeologist in ways that radiate out into the great losses of our time. Ten years in the making, The Eden Revelation is a book of epic dimensions, brimming with ideas as it deepens with characters and action. From David and Rhonda Rosenberg, a writer and a research scientist, respectively, in their Eden of the Florida Everglades.
-Grace Schulman, Strange Paradise
A selva-oscura (Dante: 'Midway through the journey of life/ I found myself in a dark wood, / with the clear path ahead of me lost...') of essay, memoir, porn and lyric-and quite a bit of interesting science. I never read anything like it, obviously, nor has anyone else. Although I am a fan of the animations or reanimations of ideas, this Eden teems with so many I flirted with the Rule of St. Benedict.
-Andrei Codrescu, Too Late for Nightmares
...In the absence of a conventional narrative, the Rosenbergs make hay of the characters' ricocheting analyses and revelations. This experiment pays off with dividends.
-Publishers Weekly (starred review)
[The Rosenbergs] worked on a secluded bench in the UC Berkeley botanical garden. The plants were alive in the manuscript pages I first read, as indeed we learn they do breathe, climbing out of the sea to create ecosystems. The novel's characters are all in a tizzy about a weird ancient voice in a disturbed colleague's head, an archaeologist. When transcribed in psychoanalysis, the voice elaborates on an actual source for the Eden story, with the 'garden' described as the ecosystem in which humans evolved. All kinds of other info pingpongs among the heavily credentialed characters, whose relationships are shaken and stirred. Although full of poetic history blended with science, it all happens on the surface, like a complex martini. I expect it will go down smooth, with a kick.
-Bill Berkson, Since When