Wirkus, Tim
Entry updated 4 December 2023. Tagged: Author.
(? - ) US author, with a PhD in creative writing and literature from the University of South California, whose Mormon upbringing plays a significant part in their work to date. Wirkus's first novel, City of Brick and Shadow (2014), while non-fantastical, draws on the influence of Jorge Luis Borges for a mystery, never resolved, about two hapless, young Mormon missionaries in Brazil who are drawn into a criminal investigation.
Of greater genre interest is the ambitious The Infinite Future (2018), a series of nested tales in which a former Mormon missionary searches for the lost sf manuscript of a secretive Brazilian Pulp author. When the manuscript is found at last (after much searching), it contains further nested tales, narrated in part by a historian-nun in the Far Future, of the adventures of a formidable space captain turned mystic.
The novel is of considerable power, as much for its examination of the intersection of faith and sf as for its evident love for the Pulps. The sf novel-within-the-novel is equally fascinating, as Wirkus challenges the reader to assemble, or reflect upon, an imaginary Mythology of the future created by outsider children as an innocent pastime. As in Wirkus's first novel, the search for answers proves to be the point itself.
Wirkus is a writer both playful and serious. Further novels are eagerly anticipated. [LTi]
Tim Wirkus
born
works
- City of Brick and Shadow (New York: Gallery Books, 2014) [hb/]
- The Infinite Future (New York: Penguin Press, 2018) [hb/]
links
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