Scott Spires is Associate Editor for Geography at Encyclopædia Britannica. He studied at the universities of Chicago, St. Andrews, and Oxford, specializing in linguistics and Slavic languages. As a writer he has an extensive publication record, including on such geographical topics as urbanism, archeology, and travel writing. He is also the author of two novels, Abandon All Hope (2021) and Social Distancing (2024).
That question haunts Fred Traubert, a disillusioned former professor of Germanic languages. Fred has relocated to a small town in Wisconsin on the shores of Lake Michigan, hoping to not only make a fresh start, but also survive whatever apocalypse is sure to be on the horizon.
But his life in picturesque Roverton turns out to be far from ideal. His marriage is deteriorating; his son has dropped out of college to brew beer and study strange ideologies;...
Abandon All Hope is a comic novel of ideas that asks: How do you make your way in a world where stability is illusory, fraud and lies are ubiquitous, and happiness is always elusive? Should you be a realist or an idealist? And how's life working out for you, anyway? In a story that evokes such 1990s classics as High Fidelity and Fight Club, the novel's two antiheroes struggle against unsympathetic employers, uncomprehending relatives, meaningless jobs, romantic frustration, and social isolation,...