In a light that is fierce and strong one can see the world dissolve.–Franz KafkaIn his first (published) novel, I am convinced that Tom McCarthy realized his beguilingly strange fictive vision within a degree of perfection. In a skillfully wrought authorial mirroring, every element begets that wh...
He’d been delayed in Vienna for so long that by the time a flight became available his schedule had him in Seattle, so he’d flown straight there. This was annoying—beyond annoying: frustrating. In fact, his absence filled me with what I can only describe as anxiety. Not that his presence made you...
An orchestra is playing beside one, in a bandstand. As he approaches it he realises that the seated musicians are arranged in a heart shape; also that the mausoleums are in fact not mausoleums: they’re pavilions housing fountains. People stroll from one to the next, holding their glasses out bene...
Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in hardcover in Great Britain by Alma Books Limited, Richmond, Great Britain, in 2007. Vintage and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc. This is a work of fiction. ...