by Nathan Hill
First published 2020
Valerian sits in his sterile university dormitory, surrounded by economics textbooks and the cold logic of modern academia. The humanities have been stripped away from his concrete campus in England, leaving him isolated and bitter. He has no friends, no hope, and no escape except for the letters he writes to no one at all. Through these desperate missives, Valerian pours out his philosophical thoughts, his poetry, his autobiography, and his fiction. He rails against the economic thinking that dominates his world and tries to resurrect something like Romantic idealism to protect himself. The letters become his weapon against a system that crushes the human spirit under spreadsheets and profit margins. Valerian seeks nothing less than redemption through retreat, hoping to find meaning by turning inward when the outer world offers only emptiness.
Genres: literary-fiction, contemporary, academic
Vibes: dark, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, unreliable-narrator
Setting: England, United Kingdom
Period: 21st-century
224 pages · Paperback · Independently published