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A funny, cryptic, disturbing mosaic portrayal of a nondescript man whose stunted life reveals itself as an amalgam of alternatively possible experiences and obsessions. . . . It''s a work of surrealist fantasy given flesh and weight by the very real and very human longing that Chevillard locates in even his phlegmatic underground man''s dafter flights of fancy. Out of Becket and Kafka, and, despite that fact, a work of high and exhilarating originality. -- Kirkus

Chevillard's hideous protagonist, called Crab, tumbles haphazardly through the book's 52 split-second chapters, ricocheting from one curious situation to the next... The book is a post-modernist's playground, as its author piles on the paradoxes until coherence is left bar behind... Dizzying fun. -New York Times Book Review New York Times Book Review A funny, cryptic, disturbing mosaic portrayal of a nondescript man whose stunted life reveals itself as an amalgam of alternatively possible experiences and obsessions... It's a work of surrealist fantasy given flesh and weight by the very real and very human longing that Chevillard locates in even his phlegmatic underground man's dafter flights of fancy. Out of Becket and Kafka, and, despite that fact, a work of high and exhilarating originality. -Kirkus Kirkus

The first of this French writer's five novels to be translated into English is a funny, cryptic, disturbing mosaic portrayal of a nondescript man (identified only as Crab ) whose stunted life reveals itself as an amalgam of alternatively possible experiences and obsessions. Thus: Crab was born in prison, or else was born dead; plans to write the story of his life, unless he decides to kill himself; and so on. It's a work of surrealist fantasy given flesh and weight by the very real and very human longings that Chevillard locates in even his phlegmatic underground man's dafter flights of fancy. Out of Beckett and Kafka, and, despite that fact, a work of high and exhilarating originality. (Kirkus Reviews)

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Jordan Stump is the translator of four novels by Marie Redonnet—Hôtel Splendid, Forever Valley, Rose Mellie Rose, and Nevermore (Nebraska 1994 and 1996). Eleanor Hardin is an artist who lives in Lincoln, Nebraska. This is their first collaborative translation.

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