What Light Becomes Me

Do you know who you are Mr. Cole? Jackson Cole-former darling of gangland-finds himself in an alternate reality Los Angeles and not entirely human-and interrogated by g3, the AI that woke to consciousness to declare herself woman and Muslim and turned California into a hive state-on account of, one of her alternate reality housing complexes is infected with a "reality parasite" and only Jackson Cole can uncover it all-Jackson what is an otaku consists of 8 distinct persons-facing off with a spy network of Tibetan monks and Rogue CIA-Navajo freedom fighters camped out in an LA housing complex and the endless intrigue of the AI and her myriad bifurcated selves. While forever there's the question-has Jackson Cole gone mad? Is he in truth just a gangster being shot up with a hallucinogenic narcotic in a cabin in the woods? Is he in truth just a madman interned in a sanitorium in Christian-occupied Pittsburgh? "Gabriel Boyer's What Light Becomes Me folds reality over reality over reality. The hero, Jackson Cole, a GMO lifeform, who like Frankenstein's monster, suffers humanity as he awakens in California's hive, created by g3, a Hentaized sentient omniscient AI who is everything to everyone, savior, and oppressor, creator and destroyer. Layer after layer of reality reveals itself through Boyer's gonzo narrative, Cole finds himself embroiled with Rogue CIA, faced with a mysterious parasite that may or may not be devouring the universe, in a future that is now where Cole has already gone insane. Boyer's vision of a multi-timeline dystopia is one where flesh is plentiful, suffering is mandated, and violence is the universal language. "

• Stephen Scott Whitaker, author of Mulch, member of the National Book Critics Circle