Noah Hawley’s sixth novel is one of those books that’s difficult to characterize. It’s a work of dark political satire, a near-future thriller, a road trip novel and an epic quest. But most of all, it’s perhaps the first must-read novel of 2022, the kind of book that you’ll be urging your friends to pick up throughout the year, because it’s unlikely to get any less relevant than it is right now.

ANTHEM kicks off a few years in the future, when today’s children --- now teenagers who are still emotionally scarred from growing up during a pandemic --- have begun killing themselves in vast numbers, a new and horrific sort of pandemic that is leaving their Gen-X parents both perplexed and terrified. The first girl to kill herself is a young woman named Claire, who stages a particularly macabre tableau, implicating her father for his role in perpetuating the ongoing opioid crisis. Months later, her younger brother Simon has been admitted to a rehab center outside Chicago to find therapies for his ongoing grief and anxiety about her death, emotions his parents refuse to validate or even acknowledge.

"[ANTHEM is] perhaps the first must-read novel of 2022, the kind of book that you’ll be urging your friends to pick up throughout the year, because it’s unlikely to get any less relevant than it is right now."

There, Simon meets an obsessive-compulsive, sexually provocative young woman named Louise, as well as a mysterious figure (also a teen) whom Louise has dubbed The Prophet. He claims to hear the voice of God, and that voice is sending him on a mission to find The Wizard, a shadowy figure who also plays a role in Louise’s past. Meanwhile, another young man is on a quest to find The Wizard, who he believes has impregnated his sister and is holding her against her will.

These stories intersect, of course, as do other, even more enigmatic narratives centered on the potential confirmation of a new Supreme Court justice, as well as an ex-con dedicated to keeping his, and his children’s, identity separate from the state. Along the way, Hawley populates his epic thriller with characters who take their names from fantasy novels and movies, as well as thinly veiled versions of real-life figures such as Jeffrey Epstein, Amy Coney Barrett, and yes, Donald Trump. This amalgamation of quasi-mythical and real-world elements gives ANTHEM the feel of a Vonnegut novel, as does its mix of humor and borderline horror. What makes it a propulsive read is not just its short chapters, shifting perspectives and quick pacing; it’s that this seemingly allegorical novel is just a little too uncomfortably close to our current (or prospective) reality.

In Hawley’s fictional world, young people --- disillusioned by their parents’ inability to cope effectively with drug epidemics, the pandemic, the war on terror and the climate emergency --- have lost not only trust but also hope. But all is not lost, for even as suicide threatens to eliminate an entire generation, Simon and his cohort are finding hope in direct action, violent and extreme though it may be.

Every once in a while, Hawley breaks the fourth wall, especially near the end of the novel. He admits that he wasn’t sure how the book could or should end, or how to reassure his own daughter about what happens next to these characters, and by extension to her and her generation. Ultimately, he leaves much of that decision up to us, which is only one reason why ANTHEM is likely to stick in our minds long after we turn the final page.