New Jonathan Safran Foer Novel Coming in 2014

After two non-novel projects, Tree of Codes and Eating Animals, some of us were getting a little itchy for a new Foer novel. Sure, we had movie adaptations of Everything is Illuminated and Incredibly Loud and Unbearably Close, but there’s nothing like a straight-ahead novel to quench a favorite-author thirst.

So, today’s news that Foer’s next novel, Escape from Children’s Hospital, will come out in 2014. Not soon enough for fans, but any news here is good news. Here’s the publisher’s description:

A fictionalised account of a life-changing event that happened to the author as a nine-year-old – an explosion in a summer camp science class, which left his best friend without skin on his face or hands, and whose brunt the author avoided by inches and for no good reason – this is a story about the shared trauma of childhood, the potential destructiveness of storytelling, and the redemptive power of friendship.  Weaving precariously between non-fiction and fiction, and existing at the intersection of different styles (suspense, memoir, imaginative storytelling), the book moves out from that moment in 1985 to the repercussions on the ever-expanding circle of those affected by it.