Plastic - by Scott Guild (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR - For fans of Interior Chinatown and American War, a surreal, hilarious, and sneakily profound debut novel that casts our current climate of gun violence and environmental destruction in a surprising new mold.

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN - OUR CULTURE - SO MANY DAMN BOOKS - CLIMATE & CAPITAL MEDIA

"[Plastic] deserves applause....Raises urgent questions about climate change, political violence, and spirituality with high intelligence....Wondrous." - The New York Times Book Review

Erin is a plastic girl living in a plastic world. Every day she eats a breakfast of boiled chicken, then conveys her articulated body to Tablet Town, where she sells other figurines Smartbodies: wearable tech that allows full, physical immersion in a virtual world, a refuge from real life's brutal wars, oppressive governmental monitoring, and omnipresent eco-terrorist insurgency. If you cut her, she will not bleed--but she and her fellow figurines can still be cracked or blown apart by gunfire or bombs, or crumble away from nuclear fallout. Erin, who's lost her father, sister, and the love of her life, certainly knows plenty about death.

An attack at her place of work brings Erin another too-intimate experience, but it also brings her Jacob: a blind figurine whom she comforts in the aftermath, and with whom she feels an almost instant connection. For the first time in years, Erin begins to experience hope--hope that until now she's only gleaned from watching her favorite TV show, the surrealist retro sitcom "Nuclear Family." Exploring the wild wonders of the virtual reality landscape together, it seems that possibly, slowly, Erin and Jacob may have a chance at healing from their trauma. But then secrets from Erin's family's past begin to invade her carefully constructed reality, and cracks in the facade she's constructed around her life threaten to reveal everything vulnerable beneath.

Both a crypto-comedic dystopian fantasy and a deadly serious dissection of our own farcical pre-apocalypse, Scott Guild's debut novel is an achingly beautiful, disarmingly welcoming, and fabulously inventive look at the hollow core of modern American society--and a guide to how we might reanimate all its broken plastic pieces.

Review Quotes

MOST ANTICIPATED: NYLON - CHICAGO REVIEW OF BOOKS - NEW SCIENTIST - REACTOR - LITERARY HUB - BOOK RIOT - GIZMODO - OUR CULTURE MAG - KMUW

"Call it George Saunders Barbie. . . . The novel's sustained W.T.F. brazenness deserves applause. . . . Plastic also earns comparisons to works by Tom McCarthy, Kazuo Ishiguro, and even Bertolt Brecht. Its rigorously superficial world manages to raise urgent questions about climate change, political violence, and spirituality with high intelligence."
--Ryan Chapman, The New York Times Book Review

"Scott Guild has created something fascinating with his debut novel, Plastic. His book is filled with surrealism and dark comedy that makes real people out of plastic characters. They are truly complicated and three-dimensional and the reader can really identify with them. I know I sure did."
--Doug Gordon, NPR

"With climate change, gun violence, and nuclear fallout, this dystopian comedy looks eerily similar to our world."
--Beth Golay, NPR

"An epic music/novel project."
--Brett Milano, The Boston Herald

"A dark and entertaining saga about a postapocalyptic world populated by plastic figurines, dominated by inescapable advertising, in thrall to virtual reality and fearful of increasing acts of eco-terrorism as well as government clampdowns. . . . Plastic is that rarest of publishing experiences."
--Stuart Miller, Los Angeles Times

"A world constructed from strange and wondrous materials. A world that is deeply strange and deeply familiar, with language to match--funny, broken, sad, and beautiful. Evocative and highly original, Plastic is a captivating debut."
--Charles Yu, National Book Award-winning author of Interior Chinatown

"Plastic is a book, an album, a project like no other....both a high-concept novel, and profound, so intricate and strange that I find it hard to describe. I just want to insist that people read it....[Scott Guild] is astonishingly ambitious, a virtuoso."
--Elizabeth McCracken, The Rumpus

"An immensely fun, engaging novel. . . . Plastic put me in mind of James Morrow or T.C. Boyle, and . . . its gonzo critique of capitalism reminded me of nothing so much as Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. . . . Where Plastic shines is in how it remains focused on humanity--no matter how superficial or hollow circumstances make us--and in its sheer inventive sense of play, even with such stakes."
--Jake Casella Brookins, Chicago Review of Books

"There's a certain childlike joy to this book that can make readers feel as if they are playing with dolls and stuffies to reenact the reality around them. . . . Fiction readers will delight in exploring Erin's world, especially its comedic "newspeak" and not-so-subtle social commentary, which create a uniquely enjoyable and illuminating reading experience. You'll catch yourself saying, 'That's so wow wow, ' before you're even done unfolding these nested metaphors."
--Brianne Kane, Scientific American

"An apocalyptic romance about environmental and societal collapse."
--NYLON

"Sweeping. . . . Poignant. . . . Inventive. . . . A one-of-a-kind storytelling experience."
--Stephi Wild, Broadway World

"This book rules."
--Rob Harvilla, The Ringer

"[A] sparkling debut. . . . [A] heartbreaking yet humorous journey, enlivened by jaunty tech-speak and episodes from a television show that reveal the cracks beneath this complex world's shiny exterior. Musical numbers written specifically for the book enhance the novel's sense of unreality and playfulness."
--Elyssa Everling, Library Journal (starred review)

"I cannot recommend Plastic enough."
--Nick Spacek, The Pitch

"I don't know how to describe Scott Guild's Plastic, a stunningly brilliant novel, other than to say it is profound, hilarious, wrenching, bizarre, about an imaginary universe with incalculable complexities that is also somehow our own broken world. It's one of those books that will follow you around, into your dreams and your daily life. You have never read anything like it. Scott Guild is an endlessly inventive and deeply exciting writer, morbid and funny and strange and humane."
--Elizabeth McCracken, author of The Hero of This Book

"Intricately familiar, disturbingly surreal, and playfully interesting. Coming off the summer of Barbie, you might recognize Plastic's protagonist, Erin. . . . Wonderfully inventive . . . Plastic is a major treat."
--Sam Franzini, Our Culture Mag

"Equal parts funny and poignant, this debut is a deft examination of America and our collective humanity. Clever and wildly imaginative, Plastic has heartfelt heft."
--Parini Shroff, author of The Bandit Queens

"Plastic is one of the most strangely tender and tenderly strange books I've ever read. Scott Guild's language is transportive, and his attention to the characters peopling his unique world is deeply moving. This book is the real deal: fresh, utterly its own, full of both humor and pathos, and so utterly human (plastic skin aside)."
--Ilana Masad, author of All My Mother's Lovers

"In Plastic, the collision of figurines and the apocalypse is timely, coming as it does on the heels of Barbenheimer. It's a weird, sometimes puzzling and complicated book, to be sure, but an affecting one with way more depth and humanity than its title would let on."
--Maren Longbella, Minneapolis Star Tribune

"[Plastic] teeters on a tightrope between comedy and incisive commentary. . . . A compelling narrative about a young woman dealing with trauma. . . . Plastic is a book that will stay on my mind."
--Tara Campbell, Washington Independent Review of Books

"Scott Guild . . . has created a literary and sonic universe where his characters have sprung to life, leaping off the page."
--Michael Lello, Highway 81 Revisited

"Few writers are more brilliant, captivating, and hilarious than Scott Guild. He is a visionary--and what he envisions is terrifying, yes, but also full of love, hope, and radiance. Plastic, with its large-hearted characters and riveting storytelling, will certainly turn out to be one of the best novels of the year."
--Deb Olin Unferth, author of Barn 8

"Plastic is a marvel, gimlet-eyed and utterly charming all at once. It's one of those rare novels that has both big ideas and a big heart. I'm tantalized by its sci-fi grooviness but also moved by the dolls' interiority, their assessment of their own humanity."
--Timothy Schaffert, author of The Perfume Thief

"Delightfully weird."
--Alison Flood, New Scientist

"Guild's novel is cinematic. With tones of Black Mirror's ethical acuity and the quirkiness of Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. . . . There remains a tenderness that is at times whimsical in the figurines' demonstration of how trauma, grief, and disability are still entrenched in the human need for connection."
--Lillian Liao, Booklist

"Guild shines in his impressions of a speculative world. . . . It's great fun watching Guild arrange the pieces of this inspired allegory."
--Publishers Weekly

"Guild works the parody and pathos well in this thoughtful entertainment, expertly managing to extract concern and sympathy for the plights of these plastic characters, as human as we are despite their occasionally squeaking leg hinges."
--Kirkus Reviews

About the Author

Scott Guild holds an MFA and a PhD in Fiction and works as an Assistant Professor at Marian University. His work has appeared in Time, NPR, Literary Hub, and many other venues. An advocate for prison reform, he served for years as Assistant Director of Pen City Writers, and has taught at Indiana Women's Prison. He also was the lead guitarist and songwriter for the band New Collisions, which toured with the B-52s and opened for Blondie.