Spotlight of The Damage Done by Michael Landweber

PHOTO SOURCE:
TYPORAMA
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THE DAMAGE DONE

MICHAEL LANDWEBER

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ALL INFORMATION IN THIS POST IS COURTESY OF JODIE HOCKENSMITH | JH PUBLIC RELATIONS

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People can’t stop talking about Michael Landweber’s daring new novel, THE DAMAGE DONE.
 
What would happen in a world where violence no longer existed?
 
Where guns fire bullets that hang suspended in the air instead of hitting their intended targets.
 
Where clenched fists uncurl instead of being able to strike their blow.
 
Where violent dictators who have ruled by fear find their greatest weapon useless to them, and presidents can no longer drop bombs to subdue unruly nations.

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Crooked Lane Books

 

On sale March 8, 2022

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PRAISE FOR THE DAMAGE DONE:

 

Kirkus Reviews says, “Landweber pulls off a true rarity, a utopian fantasy that actually feels good.”

Ronald Malfi, author of Come with Me goes a step further: “A grim and socially resonant novel set against a Twilight Zone backdrop, The Damage Done shines a light on the darkest parts of humanity while simultaneously offering hope to readers and mankind alike.”
 

Kevin Brockmeier, author of The Illumination, points out how the novel will make readers re-evaluate the world: “In depicting a world without violence, it brings into focus how difficult it is to strip violence from our own imaginations and from the stories we tell . . . the book’s most surprising achievement: the way it compels us not only to reconceptualize violence but implicates us in it.”
 

While Catherine Wallace Hope, the author of Once Again, zeroes in on hopefulness at the heart of the book, “This fascinating story will keep you reading, wondering what its people will dare to accomplish; and it will urge you to wonder, too, what you might be capable of, what boldness you might find, if you knew no one could physically hurt you.”
 

And E.A. Aymar, author of The Unrepentant and They’re Gone, puts it bluntly just a few days into this new year, “The Damage Done is destined to be one of the most daring books of 2022.”
 

“Mike Landweber’s wide-ranging cast of characters submerges us in a world where violence no longer exists. Thought provoking, engaging, and powerful, this novel invites us to hope for a better, though still imperfect, world.” – Susi Wyss, author of The Civilized World

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ABOUT THE DAMAGE DONE:

 

The story begins with Marcus, whose older brother Malcolm was trying to get his life back on track before being shot for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
 

As Malcolm lays dying in a hospital bed, Marcus returns to his neighborhood to exact revenge on the man he believes shot Malcolm.
 

Finding his courage and using his brother’s gun, he fires angrily only to find that the bullets stop before they hit their intended target.
 

Reeling from his attempted murder, but still determined for his brother not to be seen as a statistic,
 

He goes to turn in Malcolm’s last university assignment, so his favorite professor will know he finished it.
 

There he meets Richard, a man outwardly living the life of a respected college professor, even as a childhood marked by another violent murder threatens to overwhelm him.  
 

As the new paradigm slowly becomes apparent, both the victims and perpetrators of violence struggle to adapt to a new reality. Marcus wrestles with his beloved brother’s newfound infamy, as the very last victim of gun violence in America.
 

A middle schooler named Dab runs home from school pursued by a bully, only to be surprised when no punches fall. Ann, an abused social worker, suddenly finds herself in a world where her husband’s violent anger can’t control her.
 

A drug dealer tries to figure out how to move forward with a life not constantly overshadowed by the certainty of death.
 

And Julian, a white supremacist plotting a mass murder, slowly realizes he is no longer able to harm anyone but himself.
 

Through a series of interconnected narratives, Landweber follows the lives of seven characters – Marcus, Dab, Ann,
 

Richard and Julian, as well as Gabriela, a young woman making a dangerous U.S. border crossing from Mexico, and The Empty Shell, a dissident writer awaiting torture in a notorious prison – in order to observe how violence seeps into the corners of everyday life, how we have come to accept it, and even normalize it, in our modern society.
 

THE DAMAGE DONE is a captivating look at a world where violent acts both large and small have ceased to have meaning, and an examination of the ways in which human beings react when they no longer have it at their disposal.
 
Just because violence is a thing of the past, the instinct for it remains, and those who would use it to achieve their ends must find new ways to exert their will.
 
A timely, mind-bending novel that pushes the limits of fiction.
 
THE DAMAGE DONE will make readers question everything they think they know about violence and its place in our world.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Michael Landweber is the author of three previous novels, We, Thursday, 1:17 PM, and The In Between.

His short stories have appeared in Gargoyle, Fourteen Hills, Fugue, Barrelhouse, and American Literary Review.

He is an associate editor at Potomac Review and a contributor for the Washington Independent Review of Books.

 
He lives and writes in Washington, D.C.

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