Landscape With Invisible Hand
National Book Award winner M. T. Anderson returns to future Earth in a sharply wrought satire of art and truth in the midst of colonization.
Candlewick Press (2017)
ISBN: 9780763687892
Now a movie starring Tiffany Haddish, Asante Blackk, Kylie Rogers, and William Jackson Harper! In theaters and streaming now!
Awards
Wall Street Journal Best Book of the Year ● Boston Globe Best Book of the Year ● YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults ● YALSA Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers ● New York Public Library’s 50 Best Books for Teens ● Booklist Editors’ Choice ● Booklist Top 10 Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror Books for the Young ● Booklist Top 10 Arts Books for Youth ● Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year ● Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year ● School Library Journal Best Book of the Year ● Shelf Awareness Best Children’s and Teen Books of the Year ● Amazon.com Best Books Selection ● Barnes & Noble Best Young Adult Books of the Year ● Chicago Public Library Best Books for Children and Teens ● New Jersey Library Association Garden State Teen Book Award ● Texas Tayshas High School Reading List
When the vuvv first landed, it came as a surprise to aspiring artist Adam and the rest of planet Earth — but not necessarily an unwelcome one. Can it really be called an invasion when the vuvv generously offered free advanced technology and cures for every illness imaginable? As it turns out, yes. With his parents’ jobs replaced by alien tech and no money for food, clean water, or the vuvv’s miraculous medicine, Adam and his girlfriend, Chloe, have to get creative to survive. And since the vuvv crave anything they deem classic Earth culture (doo-wop music, still life paintings of fruit, true love), recording 1950s-style dates for the vuvv to watch in a pay-per-minute format seems like a brilliant idea. But it’s hard for Adam and Chloe to sell true love when they hate each other more with every passing episode. Soon enough, Adam must decide how far he’s willing to go — and what he’s willing to sacrifice — to give the vuvv what they want.
Reviews
“Anderson’s down-and-out in the post-scarcity world is a scorching, arch, hilarious, and ultimately very moving little parable about the cult of markets and the elevation of corporatism over human kindness. It’s as zeitgeisty as Feed ever was, and such a compact little gem of a book that you very well might read it in one sitting, as I did.” — Cory Doctorow
“Ultimately, I don’t read J. K. Rowling – or M. T. Anderson, or Ursula K. LeGuin – because of what their books have to tell me about life. I read them because these writers have mastered the ancient magic of storytelling, and because they remind me of what it’s like to be young, living in a world that seems both simple and incomprehensible.” — New York Times
“Bitter and witty.” — Wall Street Journal
“Captivating!” — Entertainment Weekly
“A fantastic new satire from M. T. Anderson … equal parts humor and philosophical rumination.” — Boston Globe
“Reminiscent of Kurt Vonnegut on a satirical roll.” — San Francisco Chronicle
“A slim, stark, brilliant cultural commentary … a satirical portrait of the artist as a young man and a resonant portrait of contemporary society.” — Toronto Globe and Mail
★ “An elegant, biting, and hilarious social satire that will appeal to dissatisfied, worried readers of all ages.” — Booklist, starred review
★ “Resplendent with Anderson’s trademark dry, sarcastic wit.” — Kirkus Reviews, starred review
★ “Anderson takes issues of colonialism, ethnocentrism, inequality, and poverty and explodes them on a global, even galactic, scale. A remarkable exploration …” — Publishers Weekly, starred review
★ “This sharp, compelling, slim volume packs a punch. Anderson’s vivid world could be a mirror for many American communities today … An engrossing speculative look at life in the margins.” — School Library Journal, starred review
★ “Parable, satire, dystopic sci-fi—Anderson’s take on a near future in which alien ‘vuvv’ have colonized America’s economy, land, and airspace has so many shiveringly close resemblances to the contemporary world that it might also be termed ‘realism.’ ... Anderson’s prose is almost hyper-lucid here—appropriately so, as the story is structured around Adam’s descriptions of his paintings. Practically every word reflects a prescient, bitingly precise critique of contemporary human folly, of economic and environmental inequities and absurdities.” — Horn Book, starred review
★ “M.T. Anderson (Feed; Symphony for the City of the Dead) has written a biting satire about the world's haves and have-nots, set in an increasingly stratified near-future where the human race has, for the most part, become expendable. It's a strange and wonderful fantasy about seeking love amid the filth, and keeping hope alive, despite unquestionable odds against it.” — Shelf Awareness, starred review
“National Book Award winner M. T. Anderson writes a multilayered and scathing satire … It’s a bleak but necessary lesson in trying to find the beauty in the disastrous, all while learning to recognize when it’s time to dream and new dream.” — Book Page
“Fans of Feed will be intrigued to follow the development of Anderson’s dystopic imagination into this similarly themed futuristic critique of the present.” — Bulletin for the Center for Children’s Books
Interviews
Booklist, “Carte Blanche: Anderson's Answers” (September 15, 2017)
Entertainment Weekly, “Trump era becomes accidental novella in new M.T. Anderson book” (September 28, 2017)
WBUR Here & Now, “M.T. Anderson's New YA Book, 'Landscape With Invisible Hand,' Is Full Of Cultural Satire” (November 13, 2017)
Kirkus Reviews, “Best Books of 2017: M.T. Anderson” (December 7, 2017)
B&N Reads Blog, “Landscape with Invisible Hand Author M.T. Anderson on National Identity, Juvenilia, and the Arts” (September 12, 2017)