In a love story set in the near future, an uneven relationship is tested by a revolutionary advance against aging. Acton and his fiancé, Diane, a couple already marked by their differences — one’s wealthy, one’s not — must now enter a new era of high-tech inequities and human extremes. Kevin Scott Magruder’s debut short novel is timely, deeply felt and sharply told.
“GODFLOWER is a tense and timely love story from the near future that probes the disastrous gulf between class and technology, leaving no illusion about the endless treachery and amorality of the powerful. Kevin Magruder is an exciting young novelist, with talent and vision to spare.” — Ben Marcus, author of Notes from the Fog, The Flame Alphabet, Leaving the Sea and others
“Magruder’s GODFLOWER is a love story, a dystopia, and a nightmare, beautifully and succinctly wrought. Immortality and extreme income inequality terrifyingly collide in this prescient debut.” — Hannah Lillith Assadi, author of Sonora
“In a book conjuring both past and future, mythology and science fiction, Magruder paints an enchanting picture of devastation. Beware of the promises of endless possibilities, he seems to tell his readers. There is nothing new under the sun. In the end, there is only love and community. In the end, we either share this life with each other, or we do not live it at all.” – Yardenne Greenspan at Ploughshares
“The title Godflower is in reference to the advent of a powerful anti-aging (or ‘immortality’) drug in the story. In a different version of the book, I imagine that the term might even have been used as street-slang for the drug…” – a brief interview with Kevin Scott Magruder at Columbia School of the Arts
Kevin Magruder has taught writing at Columbia University in New York City, where he earned an MFA in 2015. His short stories have appeared in Mary, Blunderbuss, and California Prose Directory 2016. He currently lives and works in San Francisco.
