Jonathan Safran Foer, writer, vegetarian, and wearer of glasses, has announced his first novel in more than a decade, and it’s gonna be a doozy. Titled Here I Am, it will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and is just one of three works (two novels, one nonfiction book) the publisher has acquired from the author.
Of the plot, all we’ve got to go on is that it is “the story of a modern Jewish American family dealing with family issues as a devastating earthquake hits the Middle East and Israel is invaded.” So, there’s a lot of family in there, and there will probably be a lot of tragedy that is unearthed by a precocious child or a wise elder.
The acquiring editor at FSG had this to say about the book:
“It’s got this high-wire inventiveness and intensity of imagination in it, and the sheer energy that we associate with Jonathan’s writing, but it’s a big step forward for him. It’s got a kind of toughness; it’s dirty, it’s kind of funny, like ‘Portnoy’s Complaint,’ it exposes American Jewish life.”
Tough and dirty? Sounds like it’ll be a great movie come awards season 2017. Here I Am will be released September 2016.