Fast Eddie, King of the Bees

A hustler searches for truth in a dystopian Boston, in this novel of “comically elaborate twists and turns of plot [and] broad social satire” (Robert Coover, bestselling author of The Public Burning).

An abandoned child hustles on the streets of a dystopic, near-future Boston in the aftermath of the Great Devaluation, as squatters have turned the tunnel system into an underground hive known as Dig City. During an elaborate search for his unknown parents, Eddie narrates his adventures as a street performer, pickpocket, adoptee, casino employee, and, finally, commander of the subterranean revolution. . . .

“Takes its cue from William S. Burroughs, Philip K. Dick, Charles Dickens, Jack Kerouac, and Tom Robbins. This may be the first postapocalyptic novel in which the apocalypse was created by a public works project, Boston’s Big Dig, which is currently in its second decade . . . Misdirection and game theory flesh out this funny and surprising book.” —Library Journal