The short version: At a sperm bank, someone mixes the joy juices of Chuck Palahnuik with those of Will Self. This book is the product of the XYXY union.

The long version:
Sometimes after I've read a book I enjoy getting a bit sidetracked in my review process by passing facetious comment on either the critics comments, the blurb or the book cover. After all a book is a neat little package and a way of conveying words to us in a tidy way which means we don't lose the pages, get something attractive More...

[Public Library copy]

Entertaining absurdist literature full of witty comments and observations about contemporary society (which is reflected in the title).

In this unique story, protagonist Theodore Street is decapitated in a car accident, but returns to the land of the living at his funeral. His reanimation spurs riots, and prompts fanatics to kidnap him (one group is certain he's a devil to kill, the other believes he's a phenomenon to study). Throughout the action and reaction are Theodore's More...

I have been obsessed with Percival Everett since I read "Erasure" for my African American literature class, and it completely flipped the way I thought about race, media and literature. I have been meaning to pick up another one of his novels, and over spring break we stopped in a book store and I started "American Desert", the story of a man who (on his way to commit suicide) gets hit by a truck, which severs his head, and three days later at his funeral he wakes up, unsure whether he is dead o More...

This is a modern parable and as such follows a classical mythical narrative. The story's theme reveals itself when the novel's hero, Ted Street, descends into his personal Hell, in the form of a secret government experimental lab, dedicated to human reanimation, on the site of the legendary Roswell invasion, and is faced with his personal Satan in the form of an endocrinologist/pathologist Army contractor, who desires an autopsy on Ted to understand how he can be animate after having suffered de More...

This is an interesting and entertaining book exploring the nature of life and death. Ted (Dead Ted) dies when his head is severed in an auto accident. Three days later, with his head crudely sutured back on his body, he sits up in his casket at his own funeral. Thus ensues the wacky hijinks....

Ted is the most nonplussed by his resurrection. He doesn't pretend to understand it. But he does gain a better understanding of what it is/was like to be alive. We learn that Ted just wandered through life More...

A satire on American religion, media obsession with the freakish, bureaucracy, the military/industrial complex, and, to a lesser extent, academic life. At the beginning of the book, an English professor who has failed to get tenure & is ashamed of a recent extramarital affair, decides to commit suicide but is decapitated in an auto accident on the way to do so. At the funeral, with the stitches in his neck where the funeral director has reattached his head fully evident, he sits up and begin More...

Odd, existential, yet delightful, American Desert is the story of Ted Street, who, on his way to committing suicide, is decapitated by a UPS truck. However, Ted is not dead. Or is he? Sitting up in his coffin at his own funeral, Ted begins a whole new kind of life. Is Ted a devil? An angel? A ghost? The Messiah? Or, something else entirely?
This book grapples with questions of life and death in a wholly unique and hilarious way. It's laugh-out-loud funny, but also gets one thinking about what kin More...

3 1/2 stars

This was an odd little tale of life, death and what those may mean to a man whose life felt dead and whose death brought him to some kind of understanding of life.

Ted Street dies in a tragic car accident while he was going to the beach to commit suicide. A few days later, he sits up in his coffin, and the adventure begins. He has to deal with religious fanatics, the government and the media while attempting to come to terms with his new situation. Even though the confrontations were More...

This is the weirdest book ever. A man dies and comes back to life three days later, but things go bad from there.

The plot is weird, but the writing at least moves it along. The "biting" sarcasm is not that impressive, though it tries. I never outguessed where it was heading, so it kept my attention throughout. The author could have spent more time on some of the characters and some of the story threads.

It took me about six hours to read this book, probably about the same time as it took to write More...

If you pick up this book put on your seat belt also. Percival Everett's sense of humor and commentary is hilarious and not for the faint of heart, mind or spirit. I wish that I taught grad courses in order to include this book. AMERICAN DESERT has the flavor of Ishmael Reed's JAPANESE BY SPRING. Such great satire and academic politics that it makes you want to go and slap your department chair (ha ha ha). In this field of academia, we sometimes lose our heads, feel dead, as we walk through the d More...

The first scene in the book, where a professor who is in trouble because he can't publish a book and he's up for tenure, is probably what happened in the process of making this book. It starts out very interesting, and turns into a load of bad jokes and kooky characters, and basically, garbage entertainment.

This book starts out as a novel that questions death, and presents some interesting ideas *especially this one part where the main chr. has these dreams. About a third of the way in, it dies; More...

This was an interesting book about a guy who had been decapitated in a car accident and put his head back on. An interesting scene in the morgue made me laugh, though perhaps inappropriately.
This guy also wrote an alternate history of the US had Strom Thurman won his bid for the Republican nomination for the presidency in 1948 and had gone on to win. I would like to read this book too.

A bizarre tale which still kept me reading to the end just to see how it would end. And given the weirdness, it was a satisfying ending.
Billed as a satire, I missed the humor. Although the story flowed with well-placed flashbacks to fill in the background, I just couldn't connect to the main character. I finally realized that I just didn't really like him.

I picked this book up because the premise was just too hard to resist. It appealed to the sci-fi/fantasty/social commentary fanatic in me. But once I started to read it...I almost immediately lost interest. Other reviewers are probably more likely to give you a good reason to pick this one up.

American Desert is the story of a man who, on his way to kill himself, dies in an unexpected car accident. Only he doesn't stay dead. The novel explores how Ted's undeath is received by his family, the media, religious sections (some think he's a devil, some a messiah) and by government science.

It is an interesting take on undeath, Ted still being intelligent and capable of coherent thought and emotion, in fact feeling more alive than he ever did in death - as opposed to the more common and popu More...

Ever since meeting Mr. Everett, and having dinner with him even, I have been a staunch fan! This would be the first book I read of his and also his most recent to date. That said, it is probably his wierdest - an unrealistic reality. But definately worth your time!

Not a terrible book -- and one with a pretty fantastic ending -- but my least favorite of Everett's novels. Featuring what technically could be called a zombie as its protagonist, the book revisits some of Everett's pre-_Erasure_ milieus (most notably the captive-oddity arc from _Glyph_ and the dystopian, on-the-run feel of _Zulus_) but loses its philosophical thrust in their genre trappings. Part of what made the ending hit home for me is its sense of quiet finality -- a somewhat unfortunate re More...

What's fantastic about this book: you can learn from Ted Street to be a decent person, hopefully long before you're dead. I love the satire, Jesus 19, and the fact that I always wanted to know what would happen next. Well done, Mr. Everett!

Weird. A relatively normal guy gets his head sewn back on after being decapitated and comes back to life. He ends up being taken out into the desert, where he meets caricatures of various American types.

Bizarre novel....Very interesting, I certianly wanted to keep reading. Makes me rethink my desire to want to move West... some very strange stuff happens in the desert.

This was the 1st book that I read by this author and I was hooked. The ending pissed me off but that is why I like him. He is different ALWAYS different.

Bitty, somehow clumsy, but saved by a nice ending and some interesting ideas. Feels slightly dashed off. Not Everett's best, but still pretty good.

This is the first Percival Everett novel I've read and I ended it feeling satisfied. I love a good satire, and have read better. But it has a great major theme -- a man who learns how to live only after dying and being reanimated -- and much to say about American culture.

A thoughtful, intelligent novel. This is meant to be a satire but it actually really moved me in a way satires generally don't do! This is highly recommended!

Absurd without being obnoxious. I will look for more books by this guy.

The book was somewhat interesting. It was a satire and I have a hard time with those sometimes. It was an easy fast read and would be a good discussion book as I wonder about some of the meaning.

Meh, this would be better as a movie starring Tom Hanks and Kate Winslet

Unlike anything I have ever read and loved it.

Hilarious and engaging.