Rauch’s speculative YA novel focuses on patients and staff at a shadowy facility involved in a shocking conspiracy.

Sixteen-year-old Chester Owens has been a resident of Greendale, one of a network of mysterious “educational facilities,” for as long as he can remember. He and other young people take classes and receive treatment for mental illnesses while the staff “constantly collect[s] data on everyone.” Socially awkward Chester has been diagnosed with multiple anxiety disorders and lives a regimented and largely solitary existence, though he eventually becomes friendly with his lively new roommate (and reformed bully), Rolland Shearer, and Greendale’s head of security, Desmond Jones. Desmond—who, like Chester, is a person of color—was adopted when he was young by a wealthy white real-estate magnate with a racist reputation. After Desmond began dating a politically aware Black college student, Simone Thompson, he became estranged from his adoptive parents; later, he and Simone broke up. But now, years later, she’s taken a job at Greendale, acting as a mentor to Chester. She’s also involved with the Truth Brigade, an organization of muckraking journalists and hackers. Ostensibly, all of the residents of Greendale will one day transition to autonomous, adult lives. However, it turns out that the facility, and its parent company, Leto—run by cagy Head of Operations Claire Steinfeld—have an appalling secret, and it’s one that directly involves Chester and all the other young people under its roof.

The most compelling aspect of Rauch’s novel is its worldbuilding, as it presents a vision of a near-future New York City, outside Greendale’s walls, that’s not that far removed from reality, with a few thoughtful additions. For example, boats have become a popular form of rapid transit, and social clubs have arisen in which people wear buttons during their commutes to show that they’re amenable to conversations with strangers. Also, a compassionate squad of officers (who aren’t police) aids homeless people—a notion that’s been debated for years in the real-life New York. Other developments, such as the fact that several companies in this brave new world employ controversial “growth technology” that involves incubating babies “in a big vat,” contribute to the futuristic atmosphere while also adding to the greater mystery. Rauch has a way with similes, as when he describes bus passengers that “shifted and rattled like eggs in a carton,” or a character’s voice as “unpredictably wispy and scratchy, like a child learning to play the violin.” That said, the narrative often lingers in the analytical minds of its characters; this tendency, along with the inclusion of extensive flashbacks, slows the pace to a crawl at times. Near the end, though, the story suddenly embraces a medical-thriller twist that calls to mind the work of Robin Cook in Coma (1977) and Brain (1981). The major revelation, which ties into the novel’s title, is certainly clever, but it comes far too late to have a great impact—and not long afterward, the story wraps up far too neatly.

An intriguing futuristic thriller that’s hampered by structural and pacing issues.

Rauch’s fantastical novel tracks the afterlife of a widowed atheist.

Walter Klein is diagnosed with cancer and makes a principled decision to refuse treatment, essentially issuing himself an imminent death sentence. His wife, Susan, the love of his life, is dead, and with her went his attachment to this world. Walter continues on with his quotidian affairs—he plays in a jazz band, goes to work, and starts to spend time platonically with a woman, Leslie, whose appearance reminds him of Susan. When some repressed rage suddenly surfaces, he goes on a murderous rampage, killing Leslie and raping her, murdering two of his band mates and then his noisy neighbors. Walter wakes, discovering that he died in his sleep. Now he’s to be escorted in the afterlife by a guide named Vincent until the moment he is finally judged. Walter’s paroxysm of violence was part of a cleansing process, a kind of cathartic prelude to his judgment and did not occur in the physical world, but on some spiritual plane. Once evaluated, his judges will determine whether he is permitted to retain his “Right of Choice,” his prerogative to select either permanent nothingness or a sustained fantasy crafted specifically for him. Debut novelist Rauch slowly unfurls the moral cataclysm of Walter’s young life—a violent confrontation with his mother’s abusive boyfriend, an event that engendered an emotional rift between the two. Rauch imaginatively conjures an entire underworld, not only characterized by a different metaphysical reality, but a different set of moral and juridical rules. Rapists are raped as punishment for their past transgressions, and a pedophile who exercised restraint is given guilt-free orgies with children. Walter is the fulcrum of the plot though, a profoundly complex man—loving but also brimming with volatile anger, a simple person who lived a small, precious life but is also capable of real emotional and philosophical depth. The judicial aspect of the novel is fascinating and provocative—a man who kills 157 people is taken to task not for the murders themselves—none of them were innocents—but for the delight he took in the killing. The theological cosmology that emerges—instead of the historical monotheistic god, a being or beings, simply referred to as “The Truth,” preside over all—is both a little opaque and overwrought. Also, there isn’t much of a supporting cast for the protagonist. Walter’s spiritual guide, Vincent, is the only other character fleshed out enough to even approach authentic personhood. The prose, though, is sharp and lively, and Rauch has a talent for the seamless integration of serious philosophical themes and bantering humor. This is an ambitious modernization of Dante’s Inferno, an homage to a literary classic that boldly stakes out its own creative and intellectual territory. Furthermore, Rauch furnishes a thoughtful reflection on the meaning of a life well lived.

A richly creative meditation on love, mortality, and the possibility of what lies beyond.