A QUIVER IN THE PURLIEU

A surreal novel about one man’s oddball journey.

The unnamed narrator of this winding tale begins by explaining, “Life has become tough lately.” While driving to work, he maintains an inner monologue and notes one of his planned projects for the day. If he sees a pretty girl, he will say, “That’s a very pretty girl!” Things take a turn when he acknowledges that he has a dead man in the back seat named Ad. Ad once ventured to Canada, where a kindly farmer gave him a banyan tree seed. The farmer assured him that the seed could grow anywhere. After Ad planted the seed at home, he wound up becoming one with the resulting tree. As Ad explains it, “I died from the world you know” when he became one with the banyan. The setting soon shifts to a small village where the narrator grew up and once received advice from a holy man (“life is fickle”). Having left the village in his 20s, the narrator meets a billionaire named Hans Ray and, for a time, works for him. Later he ventures (via a spaceship) to the “dark end of the galaxy” to obtain a book from his boss. Such wild swings of events keep the reader guessing throughout this short work, which has an inviting way of blending the fantastical and the ordinary. Developments like Ad’s strange demise give way to the narrator providing an extensive rundown of the patrons and staff at a local bar. It amounts to an odd but delightfully fluid plot. The novel occasionally veers into mundane subplots, however. For instance, we learn that a bartender named Chelsea whose “mother ended up becoming a hairstylist and, with family support, led a relatively comfortable and easy life.” While such a description may not be particularly gripping, new developments are always afoot.

A whirlwind novel that skillfully mixes the mundane and the absurd.