BOOKS
The Disintegrations: A Novel — (2017)
"I know nothing about death, absolutely nothing," asserts the narrator of this inventive autobiographical novel. Yet he can't stop thinking about it. Detached from life in Los Angeles and his past in Australia, uncomfortable around other humans, he researches death on the Internet; mulls over distant and intimate stories of suicides, serial killers, and "natural deaths"; and wanders about LA's Holy Cross Cemetery. He's looking for answers, all the while formulating his own disquieting philosophies.
The End of the World Book: A Novel — (2008)
This is no ordinary novel. An encyclopedia of memory—from A to Z—The End of the World Book deftly intertwines fiction, memoir, and cultural history, reimagining the story of the world and one man's life as they both hurtle toward a frightening future. Alistair McCartney's alphabetical guide to the apocalypse layers images like a prose poem, building from Aristotle to da Vinci, hip-hop to lederhosen, plagues to zippers, while barreling from antiquity to the present.