Author Ned Beauman, who was named one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists in 2013, will discuss his new book, “Venomous Lumpsucker,” on Vroman’s Live, Vroman’s Bookstore’s virtual author discussion series, on Wednesday, July 12, at 1 p.m. He will be in conversation with novelist and story writer Joshua Cohen.
The event will be live on Crowdcast. It is free to watch but early registration is advised.
“Venomous Lumpsucker” is a dark and witty story of environmental collapse and runaway capitalism from the Booker-listed author of “The Teleportation Accident.”
In the near future: tens of thousands of species are going extinct every year, and a whole industry has sprung up around their extinctions. For instance, the biobanks: secure archives of DNA samples, from which lost organisms might someday be resurrected. But then, one day, it’s all gone. A mysterious cyber-attack hits every biobank simultaneously, wiping out the last traces of the perished species. Karin Resaint and Mark Halyard are concerned with one species in particular: the venomous lumpsucker, a small, ugly bottom-feeder that happens to be the most intelligent fish on the planet. Across the dystopian landscapes of the 2030s – a nature reserve full of toxic waste; a floating city on the ocean; the hinterlands of a totalitarian state – Resaint and Halyard hunt for a surviving lumpsucker. And the further they go, the deeper they’re drawn into the mystery of the attack on the biobanks.
To register ahead of time and get an email reminder, visit www.crowdcast.io/e/ned-
For more information, call (626) 449-5320 or visit www.vromansbookstore.com/ned-