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Before Luminarium, Alex Shakar published only one other novel. It was titled The Savage Girl, and it was released a week after 9/11 and eight days after the memorial service for his younger brother who died of cancer. Last month, Shakar published an excellent essay about the experience titled "The Year of Wonders" for literary website The Millions, and much of the essay is devoted to The Savage Girl's prepublicity blitz. HarperCollins, in publicizing Shakar's novel about consumerism and advertising and irony, ironically prepped him to be the Next Hot Young Literary Thing. All the preparations for his debut, including a demeaning Details magazine shoot featuring Shakar dressed like a pop star from the 1980s, seemed ridiculous to him, even without his brother's health struggle and the awesome terror of 9/11 to put things into proper perspective.

The Savage Girl was published and immediately disappeared—remember that after 9/11, media critics were busy publishing earnest essays about how irony was dead and entertainment obsolete in the new, hyperserious world that emerged from all the ash—and Shakar basically went into hiding for a decade. Luminarium is Shakar's grand return to the stage of literary fiction, and it feels like a Big Book of Big Ideas...

(Keep reading.)