UC Santa Cruz

Gad’s Book is a fast-paced, darkly humorous novel that blends philosophical fiction, political satire, and metafiction. The narrative follows an unnamed copywriter and aspiring novelist who—while struggling to navigate the social-technological landscape in present-day Berkeley—unwittingly joins Antifa. When we first meet the narrator, he is awkward, obsessive, and, like so many of his generation, anxious about everything. He (and his counterparts) experience social media anxiety disorder, filter bubbles, the transience of data, the attention deficit, the medicalization of depression, internet culture, the redundancy of technological life, artificial intelligence, and artificial realities. From the very first pages of the novel, the narrator seems to believe that he needs to have an opinion about anything and everything—and, more importantly, that his opinions need to be “correct.” His actions reflect his anxiety: he hides from his ten housemates, whom he has delayed meeting; pretends to smoke cigarettes even when no one is watching; practices making faces on his iPhone camera before going to parties; and spends much of his free time thinking up increasingly bizarre plots for the novel he isn’t writing. And that’s another thing: he’s anxious about (not) writing. Amid growing political tension (it’s an election year), he encounters a cast of characters—enigmatic political activists who offer him an escape from boredom, cynicism, and inertia—and he soon finds himself entangled in dangerous conflicts, complex romantic relationships, and sexual misadventures that first enliven then threaten to destroy his carefully-constructed life.