Specimen Days

by Michael Cunningham

SPECIMEN DAYS was the title of Walt Whitman's autobiography, written in 1882. Michael Cunningham's work of fiction, bearing the same title, consists of three novellas set in Whitman's New York City, all of which evoke the poet in some way. "In the Machine," which takes place during Whitman's time, is about a boy named Lucas who is obsessed with both his dead brother's girlfriend and Whitman's poetry. "The Children's Crusade" is a contemporary thriller involving a group of suicide bombers--one of whom is named Luke--who are terrorizing Manhattan. "Like Beauty" is a sci-fi story about an alien and a teenage visionary (Luke again) who live in a post-apocalyptic New York plagued by reptilian alien refugees from another planet. Like his phenomenally successful THE HOURS, Cunningham's novel tells three very different but interconnected stories.

Editions of Specimen Days

ISBN 9780312425029	Binding/Format Paperback	Publisher Picador USA	Date 2006	Price $1.00	Used, Very Good
ISBN 9781593977146	Binding/Format Digital	Publisher Audio Renaissance	Date	Price None Available
ISBN 9781593977153	Binding/Format Digital	Publisher Audio Renaissance	Date	Price None Available
ISBN 9780792736592	Binding/Format MP3 CD	Publisher Chivers Audio Books	Date 2005	Price None Available
ISBN 9780792736585	Binding/Format Compact Disc	Publisher Chivers Audio Books	Date 2005	Price None Available
ISBN 9780374975395	Binding/Format Hardcover	Publisher Farrar Straus & Giroux	Date 2005	Price None Available
ISBN 9780374975388	Binding/Format Hardcover	Publisher Farrar Straus & Giroux	Date 2005	Price $1.00	Very Good
ISBN 9780374299620	Binding/Format Hardcover	Publisher Farrar Straus & Giroux	Date 2005	Price $1.00	Used, Good
ISBN 9781593976897	Binding/Format Compact Disc	Publisher Macmillan Audio	Date 2005	Price $6.49	New
ISBN 9781593976873	Binding/Format Compact Disc	Publisher Macmillan Audio	Date 2005	Price $1.00	New

Publisher Notes

Prophetic poet Walt Whitman presides over each interlinked episode in a visionary novel set in the city of New York, featuring the same group of characters--a young boy, an older man, and a young woman--that range from "In the Machine," which takes place at the height of the Industrial Revolution, through the twenty-first-century "Children's Crusade," to "Like Beauty," set in a city of the future. Simultaneous.

Media Reviews

"Cunningham's fourth novel sometimes seems ready to collapse under the weight of its lavishness and ambition--but thrillingly, it never does. This is daring, memorable fiction."

First Line

Walt said that the dead turned into grass, but there was no grass where they'd buried Simon. He was with the other Irish on the far side of the river, where it was only dirt and gravel and names on stones.

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