The Loony: a novella of epic proportions

The Loony is a novella by Christopher Wunderlee, published in 2005, that achieved a 'cult' status due to its experimentation, eroticism, and subject matter. It describes the experiences of a blackmailed astrophysicist named Albert Lochner, who allegedly played an integral part in NASA faking the Apollo moon landings in the late '60s and '70s.

Described as post-modern and/or hysterical realism, the novella is a series of vignettes that intertwine, loop, and leap in an intentional mimickery of "lunacy" that center around the protagonists belief that he assisted in the "greatest myth-making in history" and follow his random, inflated accounts of how he was initiated into the "lie". Once embroiled in the conspiracy, Lochner soon finds himself blackmailed to keep the secret. Through a series of erotically charged seductions by a super-spy named only Harris, Lochner agrees to certain "conditions" to protect the woman he believes he loves and whom he believes is being threatened. However, he soon discovers that she may have been part of the conspiracy. Spiralling out of control, the novella follows Lochner's descent into paranoia and his quest to discover what truly happened.

Themes

Implosion is a central theme of The Loony. The book is broken up into 10 chapters, which are counted down until the zero-moment, David Bowie's "Space Oddity" is quoted extensively (in which Major Tom's space capsule 'implodes'), and much of the narrative is occupied with the protagonist's movement towards psychological implosion. Additionally, the concepts of historical revisionism, myth-making, and chaos feature heavily.

An experimental work, The Loony is a non-linear narrative that employs unique plot devices that are difficult to categorize. Episodes include a transcript of an "interrogation" that is obviously a group-session in an institution, a secret meeting of a black government group that barters for the right to claim historical facts (and thus, fictional events become part of our history); a game of craps with God; and most interestingly, "out-of-room" voices that range from former president Richard Nixon to astronauts to spies interrupt the prose seemingly randomly and "file footage" of various historical events and movies are played simultaneously with dialogue, creating an odd apprehension, confusion and beauty.

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