Bliss

Lewis (Thumbs) writes an absorbing and complex urban fantasy about fatherhood, forgiveness, sacrifice, justice, and coming to grips with the moments one tries to forget most. In Feral City, a Japanese American man named Benton Ohara needs a lot of money, and fast, if he’s going to pay for his son’s continued medical treatment. He heads to the slums in an attempt to make a quick buck, but his desperation leads him down a path of murder and addiction, pushed further and further by the mob gods of Feral City. Benton can sleep peacefully at night after a day of eliminating targets, provided he is anesthetized by Bliss, a memory-erasing drug supplied by Lethe, the god of oblivion. After he is ordered to kill his wife Mabel, Benton seeks treatment from a facility that focuses on returning the memories of recovering Bliss addicts, along with their shame. When the facility directory Rachel, a Black woman, brings Benton’s memories back, he must rediscover himself. The novel comes to a head as Benton, his son Perry, those he helped at the rehab, and the families of those he has murdered clash in the realm of Lethe.