The Readymade Thief, by August Rose, is a rare book. I have only read a few other books that take actual history and spin it into a compelling conspiracy, with profound doses of science fiction and philosophy. The more I read, the more I enjoyed this tale of Lee’s perilous involvement with a sinister group of Marcel Duchamp enthusiasts who seem to be everywhere and are more than willing to kill what they want.
We meet Lee Cuddy in a brief prologue where she is walking around an abandoned aquarium. This is a place she escapes to for solitude and peace. Except, this time, she finds a note that orders her to return what she took. Then Lee takes us back to the beginning of her story to explain why she is so terrified to find that note and what she’s doing wandering around abandoned buildings.
Lee started to steal at a young age. Something about taking things makes her feel alive. Since her father is gone and her mother pays a lot more attention to her new boyfriend than Lee, the stealing is a way for her to make connections with other people and take care of herself. The Readymade Thief might have been a story about a girl who became a criminal, except that strange things start to happen very early in the novel. She gets an invitation to an exclusive rave hosted by the Société Anonyme (named for an artistic society Duchamp belonged to). Odd men in old-fashioned dress keep bumping into her. Her friends disappear under strange circumstances. There are drugs that turn rave-attendees into biddable zombies. Something bizarre is going on and Lee is inadvertently stuck in the middle of all of it.
After Lee is betrayed and ends up in a juvenile detention facility, then escapes, we start to learn a lot more about the Duchamp fanatics. It is marvelous the way The Readymade Thief weaves together Duchamp’s various artworks with physics and crime. I don’t want to say too much, because the slow revelation of secrets and conspiracies and betrayals made it impossible for me to put the book down. I plan on handing this book to other readers and just saying, “Read this.”