Adam Johnson

San Francisco writer Johnson was highly praised for his debut collection of short stories, Emporium, and set a record for consecutive appearances in the Best New American Voices anthologies. His best work has the same satiric bite of a Vonnegut or a T.C. Boyle, sharp and funny and surreal. But his first try at the longer form, Parasites Like Us, can be kindly called “promising.” It’s rather an unfocused mess, wandering though several pointless subplots on its way from satirizing a hapless anthropology professor at a small South Dakota college to destroying the human race by plague. He’d have been better off developing the book’s initial setup, a sort of offbeat Wonder Boys-on-the-prairie thing, instead of the unconvincing apocalyptic final third. Kurt Vonnegut destroyed the world with a great deal more flair, and with a more sharply defined satiric point, in Cat’s Cradle. That said, we’re looking forward to Johnson’s second.