Wow!  While we had never completely given up hope that there would ever be a follw up to Helen DeWitt's brilliant debut, The Last Samurai (NOT to be confused with the Tom Cruise vehicle of the same name that came out years later, to which it bears no relation), we had come pretty close.  So we were nearly bowled over with surprise by our discovery of the impending release of Lightning Rods, which has now just arrived on our shelves.  We imagine that most – and hope all – of our customers who have had the opportunity to read The Last Samurai will share our excitement. 

Helen DeWItt's tour de force, one-of-a-kind novel, The Last Samurai is a Certified Copacetic Classic™, so we've been anticipating this long-rumored (and long, at 608 pages) book for quite awhile, and now it's here.  It is a collaboration with the journalist, Ilya Gridedd, and yes, it's a crazy labyrinth of lives within lives played out through books within books that will have your head spinning, but it's also a heartfelt requiem for the dismal state of classical liberal arts scholarship, literary life, and, most of all, authentic personal creativity here in the era of late-capitalism where value and price have become indistinguishable (and, in the process, more-or-less explicitly frames itself as the 8 1/2 of novels). 

For a more in-depth exploration of this book – and its back story – we direct you to Jess Bergman's write up for The Nation, HERE.

This one-of-a-kind novel, originally published in 2000, was an immediate favorite here at Copacetic HQ, and in likely intertwined in some manner with the Copacetic Comics Company DNA as it was read during its formation. Now, finally, it is back in print in this new softcover edition from New Directions.