{"product_id":"9781573668163","title":"The Fixed Stars: Thirty-Seven Emblems for the Perilous Season","description":"\u003cb\u003eA fable-like tale of a small community afflicted by a mysterious plague\u003c\/b\u003e   Juxtaposing barbarity and whimsy, Brian Conn’s \u003ci\u003eThe Fixed Stars\u003c\/i\u003e is a novel that has the tenor of a contemporary fable with nearly the same dreamlike logic.   At the novel’s heart are the John’s Day celebration and the interactions of a small community dealing with a mystery disease. Routinely citizens are quarantined and then reintegrated into society in rituals marked by a haunting brutality. The infected and the healthy alike are quarantined. In a culture that has retreated from urbanism into a more pastoral society, the woman who nurtures spiders and the man who spins hemp exist alongside the mass acceptance of sexual promiscuity. Conn delivers a compelling portrait of a calamitous era, one tormented by pestilence, disease, violence, and post–late capitalism. An unflinching look at a world impossible to situate in time, \u003ci\u003eThe Fixed Stars\u003c\/i\u003e is mythic and darkly magical.","brand":"University of Alabama Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47129077874928,"sku":"9781573668163","price":9.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781573668163_p0.jpg?v=1763769201","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781573668163","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}