LRB BOOKSHOP''S AUTHOR OF THE MONTH
ONE OF THE GUARDIAN''S BEST BOOKS OF 2019
WITH A NEW AFTERWORD BY MICHAEL HOFMANN
''If you haven-t read Bernhard, you will not know of the most radical advance in fiction since Joyce ... My advice: dive in.'' Lucy Ellmann
''I absolutely love Bernhard: he is one of the darkest and funniest writers ... A must read for everybody.'' Karl Ove Knausgaard
Instead of the book he is meant to write, Rudolph, a Viennese musicologist, produces this dark and grotesquely funny account of small woes writ large, of profound horrors detailed and rehearsed to the point of distraction. We learn of Rudolph-s sister, whose help he invites then reviles; his -really marvellous- house which he hates; the suspicious illness he carefully nurses; his ten-year-long attempt to write the perfect opening sentence; and his escape to the island of Majorca, which turns out to be the site of someone else-s very real hor
