S.

Abrams, J. J.; Dorst, Doug

ISBN 10: 1619696932 ISBN 13: 9781619696938

Publisher: Mulholland Books, 2013

One book. Two readers. A world of mystery, menace, and desire.

A young woman picks up a book left behind by a stranger. Inside it are his margin notes, which reveal a reader entranced by the story and by its mysterious author. She responds with notes of her own, leaving the book for the stranger, and so begins an unlikely conversation that plunges them both into the unknown.

The book: Ship of Theseus, the final novel by a prolific but enigmatic writer named V.M. Straka, in which a man with no past is shanghaied onto a strange ship with a monstrous crew and launched onto a disorienting and perilous journey.

The writer: Straka, the incendiary and secretive subject of one of the world's greatest mysteries, a revolutionary about whom the world knows nothing apart from the words he wrote and the rumors that swirl around him.

The readers: Jennifer and Eric, a college senior and a disgraced grad student, both facing crucial decisions about who they are, who they might become, and how much they're willing to trust another person with their passions, hurts, and fears.

S., conceived by filmmaker J. J. Abrams and written by award-winning novelist Doug Dorst, is the chronicle of two readers finding each other in the margins of a book and enmeshing themselves in a deadly struggle between forces they don't understand, and it is also Abrams and Dorst's love letter to the written word.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Review

"Filled with secrets and stories that are endlessly beguiling and inviting" (Wired)

"S. is at the heart of Abrams' aesthetic vision ... Not only do we get a novel, Ship of Theseus, purportedly by a "VM Straka" - about a man shanghaied onto a mysterious boat with a demonic crew - the copy in the reader's hand is heavily annotated by two other readers, Jennifer and Eric, who are attempting to make sense of the text and themselves, as well as the enigmatic figure of Straka himself. Interleaved into it are countless pieces of ephemera: postcards, telegrams, a map scribbled on a napkin from the Pronghorn Java coffee shop ... S., in its elegant slipcase, is the mystery box that can be opened without dispelling its mystery. It is as much of a love letter to the form as Super 8 was a homage to the films of Spielberg" (Stuart Kelly Guardian)

"It genuinely feels as if you, as the reader, have stumbled on a literary relic, the sole copy of a twisted conspiracy . . . that sense of wonder that has driven Abrams' entire career is found on every page of S." (Scotland on Sunday)

"Genuinely awe-inspiring" (Independent)

"S. is not a normal book" (New York Times)

"What we have is a new kind of book which is, in essence, a very old kind of book. As they say in Abrams' Hollywood, it's so crazy it just might work" (Financial Times)

"A book you long to share with others" (Metro)

"Astonishing" (Mark Lawson, BBC Front Row)

"Multilayered wonder" (Evening Standard)

About the Author

J.J. Abrams is the multiple Emmy Award-winning producer, writer, and director of Lost, Star Trek, Alias, The Fringe, Cloverfield, Armageddon, Super 8, and more. This is his debut novel.

Doug Dorst teaches creative writing at Texas State University-San Marcos. His work has appeared in McSweeney's, Ploughshares, Epoch, and other journals, as well as in the anthology Politically Inspired. He is also a former Jeopardy champion.