Indigo
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- £3.99
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- £3.99
Publisher Description
It is 2007 and Austria is in the grip of a sinister epidemic: Indigo Syndrome. Children are the carriers, and anyone who comes near them is afflicted with severe headaches, nausea, and vertigo. These Indigo children are sent away to the Helianau Institute in Styria, in the mountainous heart of the country, a protected zone where they cannot affect the wider population. There, one of the teachers, Clemens Setz, witnesses students being taken away in strange masks. They never come back. When Setz tries to find out what is going on, he swiftly loses his job, but he doesn't give up trying to uncover Helianau's dark secrets.
Fourteen years later, in 2021, former Indigo child Robert Tatzel notices an article in the newspaper about his old teacher: Clemens Setz has just been acquitted in a brutal murder trial. But Tatzel harbours resentments against Setz from his days at Helianau, and decides to investigate.
Set in a world uncannily familiar and yet entirely strange, Indigo is part thrilling detective story, part post-modern puzzle. Clemens J. Setz has written a novel that will change the way we read novels, and change the way we look at the world.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Austrian writer Setz's first novel to be translated into English is a complex, sometimes convoluted tale that incorporates elements of mystery, science fiction, and sociological commentary. His alter ego, math teacher Clemens Setz, interns at a school in Graz for children diagnosed with Indigo, a disorder that causes dizziness, nausea, diarrhea, and other symptoms in nearby people. Clemens soon notices that some children are "relocated" from the school, and he claims investigating their whereabouts leads to his firing but suggestions of alcoholism and mental illness undermine his reliability. Fourteen years later, former student Robert T tzel, whose Indigo has disappeared with adulthood, but who remains emotionally detached, becomes intrigued by a newspaper story about Clemens, recently acquitted of skinning a man who abused dogs. Setz creates a collage of history and anecdotes about medicine, animal experimentation, 20th-century exploration, and more, laced with pop culture references and supplemented with excerpts from classic works and black-and-white illustrations. This densely packed novel should satisfy readers who enjoy connecting the dots for themselves and following a winding path through a near future fraught with vague but urgent anxiety.
