The Story of My Baldness
Written by Marek Van Der Jagt
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The ingenious comic novel named one of the “best books of 2004” by The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Baltimore Sun.
In The Story of My Baldness, Viennese philosophy student Marek van der Jagt tells the story of his quest for l’amour fou. Van der Jagt introduces a host of unforgettable characters and weaves a web of shameful secrets in this novel that uses Vienna the way Kafka used Prague—as the (strangely familiar) landscape where the narrator’s obsessions are given free rein.
“Van der Jagt’s dysfunctional family may be the most wondrous and most marvelously entertaining in recent memory. . . . He looses the spirit of J.P. Donleavy—and more—once again upon the world. Wonderful.”
—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“Marek’s voice . . . is what gives his romantic misadventures (first kiss, deflowering, anxiety about physical endowment) their fun air of droll farce.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“Dark, funny and penetrating.”
—The New York Observer
“Archly tongue in cheek.”
—Publishers Weekly
“This whimsical novel, written pseudonymously by a Dutch novelist, masquerades as the confessions of an Austrian philosophy student . . . [who] decides to assert his existence by pursuing l’amour fou.”
—The New Yorker
Specifications
- Category: Fiction - General
- Format: Trade Paperback, 256 pages
- On Sale: February 17, 2006
- ISBN: 978-1-59051-195-4 (1-59051-195-6)
Author
Marek van der Jagt
Marek van der Jagt is a Viennese philosopher. His first book, The Story of My Baldness, was awarded the Anton Wachter Prize for a debut novel, until it was revealed that he had won the prize previously for Blue Mondays, written under the name of the best-selling international author Arnon Grunberg, his bitter public rival.
Dr. Todd Armstrong
Dr. Todd Armstrong has academic experience on both sides of the Atlantic and a longstanding interest in the role of memory and concepts of guilt in the literature of the former Austro-Hungarian empire. He lives and works in the eastern Netherlands.
