Sunshine on an Open Tomb

by Tim Kinsella

Set in fall 1988, Sunshine On An Open Tomb shuttles between two the creation of The CIA as a result of the Texas/Kingdom oil connection, and a love triangle involving the moon. Our narrator is the brooding runt of a political dynasty whose father is about to be appointed Prez. He is thoughtful, but has trouble expressing himself due to his many physical defects as a result of inbreeding. Desperate for content at the advent of the 24-hour news cycle, even our narrator is suddenly of interest to The Media. So after years of living freely among The Barbarians, The Family hides him away in one of its secret hideouts. Exhausted by the shape-shifting estate and his irresolvable love life, our narrator cloisters himself deep in the estate’s bunker and constructs a tomb around himself out of soup cans. Here he gets to work correcting the best-selling, so-called objective biography of The Family.

Genres: Fiction

365 pages, Paperback

First published April 12, 2016

Reviews

[Rob Walsh]

(Somehow no one has reviewed this yet. I'll take a stab, as this one deserves more attention).

Why are crack-pot conspiracies always the domain of the right-wing? Kinsella ponders this in his longly incubated fourth novel. A monologue from the unwanted son of an American dynastic family (think the Bush gang + witchcraft), we're whipped along past all the touchstones of the American century, with our narrator disputing the accepted story with I-was-there knowledge at every turn. And there's a love story tangled in there amongst all the SkullnBones secret societies and distant genocides. But we already knew what was going on here, right?

And the dialogue? It's out there— waaay out there, like psycho-emotional Mad Libs. “Duh, unga-bunga?” Indeed.

Kinsella finds the ley line between high & low-brow while being unapologetically neither. There are sentences here that lift the weight of a full page while entire chapters pass by like a dream. Is this academic pulp or political mysticism as de-bunked biography? It's both. For fans of Vonnegut, Jodorowsky, astrology and political theatre.

[Matthew]

I loved this book. It is a beautiful amalgamation of America’s imperialist fantasy/nightmare, and existential discovery, both of which evoke Vonneguts lesser known but equally great works (Jailbird, Hocus Pocus) all while maintaining it’s fresh and unique feel. It also captures in one sentence what some post-modern philosophers spend multiple books trying to explain. If you enjoy dark subject matter with the mundanity, subjectivity, isolation, and insanity of real life thrown in, this will probably be your kind of book. Duh, unga-bunga.

[Kyle]

Read during covid quarantine. Very timely. This book has me questioning reality. Highly recommend.

[Summerelisse]

My only regret was not reading it aloud. These words were meant to be annunciated.

[Timothy King]

Didn’t finish it. I love Tim Kinsella but something about this book was just out of my grasp. It was too weird. I didn’t get it. His first book was way better. Would still read more by him.

[Brian]

Sorry Tim, didn’t finish it. The conspiracy theory stuff was interesting, but the story itself was too disjointed and uninteresting. Still willing to try his other works.

[Drgnkingdom]

Kinsella started this deeply 2026 book in 2012, some would say he was ahead of the curve, largely enjoyed it. RIYL delillo’s libra, the devils chessboard, hunter s thompson, jodorowsky’s books

[Nathan Swain]

burroughs-esque. think i’d enjoy it more if it were shorter. very much a tim kinsella book.

[Lydia Gargano]

reading experience would have been improved if I had a cork board and some red string