Hystopia: A Novel

David Means offers an alternative, destabilised version of recent American history, through the disturbing vision of a 22-year-old Vietnam veteran.

The bitter end of the 1960s. In JFK’s third term in office, the Vietnam War rages on. A new federal agency, the Psych Corps, maintains the nation’s mental health by wiping soldiers’ memories through drugs and therapy, while those beyond help roam at will, re-enacting atrocities on civilians. This is the vision of Eugene Allen, a traumatised 22-year-old war veteran, who writes the book-within-a-book at the dark heart of Hystopia.

“Supremely gonzo and supremely good . . . If Flannery O'Connor had written about Vietnam, Rake is the kind of character she would have created. . . What is the relation between the chaos of lived experience and the coherence of narrative? How is trauma tied to the fracturing of narrative, to our inability to see the past as past, distinct from, yet leading to the present?”  —  Anthony Domestico, The Boston Globe

David Means is an American writer based in Nyack, New York. His short stories have appeared in many publications, including Esquire, The New Yorker, and Harper's. They are frequently set in the Midwest or the Rust Belt, or along the Hudson River in New York.