Specimen Days

Specimen Days is composed of three novellas that have a lot in common: poet Walt Whitman, a deformed boy, a white bowl, dead kids, brave mothers and the grinding horror of life in cities (in this case New York) whether it be past, present or future. Michael Cunningham's previous novel, The Hours similarly bound the stories of three dis-synchronous characters. If you liked that book (and I did -very much) chances are you'll like this one.

Cunningham explores three genres to great effect: the industrial age historical novel , the contemporary detective thriller and futuristic sci-fi. He raises fundamental questions: What is beauty? What does it mean to be human? What risks will we take to prevail? It's a crazy soup of haunted machines, a female Walt Whitman, cyborgs and little green men and women but it works. I don't know if it is great literature but it's a damn good read.