Acid Song: A Novel

- Blurb -

In this addictive, smart, wry yet sad, many-layered, utterly credible novel, Bernard Beckett calls on all his skills as a dramatist and man of ideas. Acid Song is a novel that explores the relationship between ethics and science, yet it's one that makes no sacrifice of action, dramatic pace, nor character. It's election day in contemporary New Zealand. From a staffroom argument about a playground fight, to a young father's confrontation with a teenage burglar, to a woman film director's footage of a campus protest, to a skinhead riot in Christchurch, to an hour's dancing at an inner city club: in every context, issues of race, politics and ethics push up viciously against each other. At the core of this simmering twenty-four hours is a piece of scientific research from a wellrespected academic which appears to link IQ to race. Should he have gone public with it? How should he have framed his announcement? What is a scientist's duty to society? Will the knowledge bring any social good? Are the calls of racist a knee-jerk reaction? This is a tightly constructed, clever, darting novel that cuts to and fro between a varied but clearly delineated cast of characters who are linked by chance, career, circumstances. It confronts one of the most controversial contemporary debates in our society head on, and asks some direct, uncomfortable questions. Bernard's a dazzler.