What a stunning novel. Beukes weaves stories together that all touch at points and give a multifaceted portrait of a very messed-up Detroit. The author is South African and seems to have seen some amazing parallels between 21st century American and post-apartheid SA. One of the characters is a cop; her daughter is another; a third is a failed journalist trying to make money with social media; a fourth is a man who works at a church and makes his way by selling off items from abandoned houses; a fifth is a very crazy artist (and perhaps a sixth is his illness, which becomes more and more powerful). One of the strong themes of the novel is the way people compete for attention in a media-saturated world and how destructive it can be when false surfaces betray us. Absolutely brilliant.