• Landscape with Invisible Hand
• written by M.T. Anderson
• published by Candlewick Press (2017)

“Dining rooms are the vermiform appendix of American architecture. They’re left over from some earlier phase of evolution, and everyone still has one, even though we no longer need them to digest.”

Landscape with Invisible Hand is one of the weirder books I’ve read in recent memory. The book is set in the near future, after a super-advanced alien race known as the vuvv have arrived and basically colonized Earth.

Imagine the European conquerors of earlier centuries as interstellar travelers, and all of humanity is cast in the role of the quaint and exotic “other,” ripe for the picking. They’re here to “help” us, they make us compete for their affection, and they cherry pick and appropriate certain aspects of “human culture.”

But in the end, they really just mean to rule over us (literally, in this case, since they live aboard spaceships in orbit) and crush our existence into meaninglessness.

And if there’s one segment of America that’s particularly prone to dwelling on the meaninglessness of life, it’s teenagers. So, enter our protagonist Adam.

Before the vuvv, Adam and his family lived a fairly standard middle class existence. They had jobs. They had a house. They had happiness.

After the vuvv, his parents’ jobs were replaced by alien tech. Earth-based currency became virtually worthless. His dad ran off. And Adam, his mom, and his sister were left with nothing.

“Our leaders were making speeches about how America’s middle class had to start dreaming and start learning how to really work. By that point, I’m not sure there really even was a middle class anymore – just all of us hoeing for root vegetables next to our cracked above-ground pools.”

The vuvv, as it turns out, are fans of “retro” Earth culture. If it’s from the 50s, they love it. Anything that’s not straight out of Leave it to Beaver, they deem inauthentic. They’re also huge fans of reality TV. So, in a bid to make money, Adam and his girlfriend Chloe start up a subscription video service that follows their (entirely fictional) 1950s-style courtship.

Things do not go well for Adam.

This is a slim book with brief chapters that pack a punch. Since Adam is an artist, the title (and all of the chapter titles) mimic the painting titles on which he’s working at the moment. That’s not just a cute way to structure the book. His art plays a significant role in the plot – and in Adam’s salvation.

If he can win an art contest sponsored by the vuvv, he can travel to their spaceship, get a cure for his debilitating illness, and literally save his family. If he can play by their rules. If.

“At a certain point, when a guy is holding up enough red flags, he’s just speaking to you in semaphore.”

Landscape with Invisible Hand is distressingly timely and relevant. In this story we see one of our potential futures. The decline of the middle class. The encroaching effects of poverty. Overpopulation and food scarcity. The widening gulf between the haves and have nots. Unrequited love and teenage angst.

It’s all there, in a mere 150 pages. And it makes this one a compelling read.

“Sometimes you think a view from above will give you a sense of mastery and power; then it turns out it just makes you realize how small your life really has been.”

(Disclosure: Candlewick Press provided me with a review copy of this book. All opinions remain my own.)