Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.

Enrique Vila-Matas's new novel is perhaps his greatest: "playful and funny and among the best Spanish novelists" (Colm Tóibín)

Mac is currently unemployed and lives on his wife's earnings. An avid reader, he decides at the age of sixty to keep a diary. Mac's wife, a dyslexic, thinks he is simply wasting his time and risking sliding further into depression—but Mac persists, and is determined that this diary won't turn into a novel. However, one day, he has a chance encounter with a neighbor, a successful author of a collection of enigmatic, willfully obscure stories. Mac decides that he will read, revise, and improve his neighbor's stories, which are mostly narrated by a ventriloquist who has lost the ability to speak in different voices. As Mac embarks on this task, he finds that the stories have a strange way of imitating life. Or is life imitating the stories? As the novel progresses, Mac becomes more adrift from reality, and both he and we become ever more immersed in literature: a literature haunted by death, but alive with the sheer pleasure of writing.

Expand title description text
Publisher: New Directions

Kindle Book

  • ISBN: 9780811227339
  • Release date: April 30, 2019

OverDrive Read

  • ISBN: 9780811227339
  • Release date: April 30, 2019

EPUB ebook

  • ISBN: 9780811227339
  • File size: 777 KB
  • Release date: April 30, 2019

Loading
Loading

Formats

Kindle Book
OverDrive Read
EPUB ebook

Languages

English

Enrique Vila-Matas's new novel is perhaps his greatest: "playful and funny and among the best Spanish novelists" (Colm Tóibín)

Mac is currently unemployed and lives on his wife's earnings. An avid reader, he decides at the age of sixty to keep a diary. Mac's wife, a dyslexic, thinks he is simply wasting his time and risking sliding further into depression—but Mac persists, and is determined that this diary won't turn into a novel. However, one day, he has a chance encounter with a neighbor, a successful author of a collection of enigmatic, willfully obscure stories. Mac decides that he will read, revise, and improve his neighbor's stories, which are mostly narrated by a ventriloquist who has lost the ability to speak in different voices. As Mac embarks on this task, he finds that the stories have a strange way of imitating life. Or is life imitating the stories? As the novel progresses, Mac becomes more adrift from reality, and both he and we become ever more immersed in literature: a literature haunted by death, but alive with the sheer pleasure of writing.

Expand title description text