Promotional Information

Part thriller, part satire, Houellebecq's prize winning and critically acclaimed new novel will be a publishing sensation

About the Author

Michel Houellebecq is a poet, essayist and novelist. He is the author of several novels including The Map and the Territory (winner of the Prix Goncourt), Atomised, Platform, Whatever and Submission. He was awarded the Legion d'Honneur in 2019.

Reviews

A delicious exercise in satire and self-parody... His best ever
*Daily Telegraph*

The outlaw of French letters returns with an acerbic riff on art and celebrity... witty, wildly erudite
*The Times*

A dark master of invention... From the very first paragraph of this brilliant novel, the reader can be in no doubt that they're in the blisteringly bleak, darkly inventive grand massif that is Houellebeqc land
*Evening Standard*

This book, so beautifully written, so inspiriting for all its pessimism, is the new novel I have loved best this year. We have not his equal
*Spectator*

Impressive... Beguiling... He is a true original
*Observer*

Winner of the Prix Goncourt, this deeply amusing novel by Houellebecq (The Elementary Particles) advances the boundaries of fiction. Just as a map shows much more than a simple photo of a place, so this novel shows how fiction can become more real than mere reality. Houellebecq employs the struggle of young French artist Jed Martin to explore the art of life and the life of art, taking him from photography to mapmaking to the painting of telling portraits. Houellebecq himself enters the novel, plays a part, and moves on, ingeniously transforming the plot in a way that evokes Quentin Tarantino's early film From Dusk Till Dawn. The story eventually becomes a direct investigation of the significance of the roles humans inhabit and how change affects them. The incorporation of the ideas of William Morris and the Buddhist practice of sitting with a corpse enliven the protean narrative. VERDICT A book of supreme importance, this is not to be missed. The occasional French phrase, such as a l'ancienne (old-style), may be lost on some American readers, but the ideas are universal.-Henry Bankhead, Los Gatos P.L., CA (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

A delicious exercise in satire and self-parody... His best ever * Daily Telegraph *
The outlaw of French letters returns with an acerbic riff on art and celebrity... witty, wildly erudite * The Times *
A dark master of invention... From the very first paragraph of this brilliant novel, the reader can be in no doubt that they're in the blisteringly bleak, darkly inventive grand massif that is Houellebeqc land * Evening Standard *
This book, so beautifully written, so inspiriting for all its pessimism, is the new novel I have loved best this year. We have not his equal -- David Sexton * Spectator *
Impressive... Beguiling... He is a true original * Observer *