We Can Save Us All

Adam Nemett

Welcome to The Egg, an off-campus geodesic dome where David Fuffman and his crew of alienated Princeton students train for what might be the end of days: America is in a perpetual state of war, climate disasters create a global state of emergency, and scientists believe time itself may be collapsing.

Funded by the charismatic Mathias Blue and fueled by performance enhancers and psychedelic drugs, a student revolution incubates at The Egg, inspired by the superheroes that dominate American culture. The arrival of Haley Roth—an impassioned heroine with a dark secret—propels David and Mathias to expand their movement across college campuses nationwide, inspiring a cult-like following. As the final superstorm arrives, they toe the line between good and evil, deliverance and demagogues, the damned and the saved.

In this sprawling, ambitious debut, Adam Nemett delves into contemporary life in all of its chaos and unknowing. We Can Save Us All is a brave, ribald, and multi-layered examination of what may be the fundamental question of our time: just who is responsible for fixing all of this?

Praise for We Can Save Us All

"Adam Nemett is the kind of smart and the kind of funny we need right now. We Can Save Us All has the savvy, dangerous feel of early Don DeLillo."

—Sam Lipsyte, author of The Ask and The Subject Steve

"At a moment when it’s hard to trust anyone who claims to see things clearly, Adam Nemett has written a smart, sensitive, terrifying novel about masculinity, philosophy, technology, and the end of the world. Recommended for all college first-years and their parents, as well as those in between."

—Keith Gessen, author of All The Sad Young Literary Men and A Terrible Country

"Adam Nemett is both an exciting new voice and a master storyteller. We Can Save Us All is a gripping tale of pre-apocalyptic Princeton students who organize themselves as radical renegades, a present-day mixture of the Merry Pranksters and the Weathermen of the 1960s. Climate change, designer drugs, gender/sexual exploration, and powerful demagogues are all vividly portrayed in this prescient and powerful high-energy novel. I gluttonously inhaled every page of this addictive, suspenseful story, and predict that soon enough Nemett will have a cult following."

—Clara Bingham, author of Witness to the Revolution: Radicals, Resisters, Vets, Hippies, And the Year America Lost Its Mind and Found Its Soul

"Adam Nemett has done something superheroic here. We Can Save Us All is a wild and uproarious debut that is also wise and deeply felt. Come for the costumes, comedy, and psychedelics; stay for the searching questions about what it means to live an honorable life—to try to be one of the Good Guys—at the (maybe) end of time."

—Justin Taylor, author of The Gospel of Anarchy, Flings, and Everything Here Is the Best Thing Ever

"Adam Nemett is a terrific new writer, and in We Can Save Us All he has crafted a wildly entertaining and often moving book about what it’s like to be young and rebellious in a dangerous world."

—Tom Barbash, bestselling author of On Top of the World, Stay Up with Me, and The Last Good Change

"We Can Save Us All is a funny, moving, and very timely story about the persistent hope that a few good young people might fix what ails us. This book is both a roadmap and a cautionary tale"

—Christopher Beha, author of Arts & Entertainments

"Nemett’s refreshing and high-energy novel has the heart and moral tension of a superhero story and the growing pains of a bildungsroman."

—Publishers Weekly

"Nemett’s recipe for disaster is sound—a dash of Pynchon, a hint of Neal Stephenson, and a nihilistic undertone that belies a semihopeful denouement... a confident, visceral debut that’s worth the ride."

—Kirkus Reviews