Dennis Cooper's sparely crafted novels have earned him an international reputation-even as his subject matter has made him a controversial figure. God Jr. is a stunningly accomplished new novel that marks a new phase in Cooper's noteworthy career. God Jr. is the story of Jim, a father who survived the car crash that killed his teenage son Tommy. Tommy was distant, transfixed by video games and pop culture, and a mystery to the man who raised him. Now, disabled by the accident, yearning somehow to absolve his own guilt over the crash, Jim becomes obsessed with a mysterious building Tommy drew repetitively in a notebook before he died. As the fixation grows, Jim starts to take on elements of his son-at the expense of his job and marriage-but is he connecting with who Tommy truly was? A tender, wrenching look at guilt, grief, and the tenuous bonds of family, God Jr. is unlike anything Dennis Cooper has yet written. It is a triumphant achievement from one of our finest writers.
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“This beautiful book is a first-person narration of how grief grows and morphs after a death, and its style and naked pain make the reader feel like he has suffered a concussion. . . . Carefully wrought in Cooper’s trademark short, clipped sentences. There’s no room for the pain to hide, and Cooper lays it bare with humor and striking honesty.” — Time Out Chicago

“Cooper has always been know for tight, gruesome prose and this is no exception. . . . Razor-sharp . . . heartrending.” — Cargo

“Cooper has transformed the all-American boy story. . . . Transcends the formulaic with exquisite writing on the level of Rimbaud’s Illuminations. . . . Cooper has his characters seeing and saying things—crucial things that nobody else writing today sees or says. . . . God Jr. is restive, uncertain and, most important, uncanny. . . . He is to be honored for following in Beckett’s footsteps so fearlessly. . . . It is an American masterpiece.” — LA Times

“Absorbing . . . carefully spare, pop-cultures prose that has earned him a cult following.” — Entertainment Weekly

“Cooper is at his best, really, writing for the unreal, the half-alive, the animated figures that form the other-world of Tommy’s desire: the computer game figures. Here he brings us characters who say things and do things and mean things.” — Edge

“The ingenuity of the narrative . . . is indeed compelling. Still, the best things here are Jim’s disclosures of his piercing, unending grief over the loss of the son he loved—and grew close to—too late. . . . Probably Cooper’s best yet.” — Kirkus Reviews

“Cooper’s genius has always been for dialogue: the clipped marriage and workplace exchanges feature searing ironies and delicate nuances that are arresting.” — Publishers Weekly

“The boldest step into a new paradigm of narrative I’ve read in a while.” — The Los Angeles Times