| Hystopia | |
| Author: | David Means |
| Language: | English |
| Country: | United States |
| Publisher: | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| Isbn: | 9780865479135 |
| Border: | yes |
| English Pub Date: | April 19, 2016 |
| Media Type: | Print (Hardcover) |
Hystopia is a 2016 novel by David Means. Literary critic Christian Lorentzen described the novel as "a counterfactual narrative by a Vietnam veteran, named Eugene Allen about his experience in a therapeutic, psychedelics-based trauma recovery program initiated, in the novel's alternate history, by John F. Kennedy."[1] In July 2016, it was longlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize.
Hystopia begins with a framing device to the narrative, presented as a manuscript, also titled 'Hystopia, left by Edward Allen, a Vietnam War veteran who has committed suicide. In this world, a hallucinogenic drug called Tripazoid can trigger a process called "unfolding", which can either help or (more reliably) worsen the PTSD of the Vietnam veterans who take it.