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“With the wizardry of a puzzle master Daniel Kehlmann permutes the narrative pieces of this Rubik’s Cube of a story—involving a lost father and his three sons—into a solution that clicks into position with a deep thrill of narrative and emotional satisfaction. Kehlmann is one of the brightest, most pleasure-giving writers at work today, and he manages all this while exploring matters of deep philosophical and intellectual import. He deserves to have more readers in the United States.”
Jeffrey Eugenides, Pulitzer Prize–winning author
From the young, internationally acclaimed author of Measuring the World comes a stunning tragicomic novel about three brothers, their relationship to their distant father, and their individual fates and struggles in the modern world
One day Arthur Friedland piles his three sons into the car and drives them to see the Great Lindemann, Master of Hypnosis. Protesting that he doesn't believe in magic even as he is led onto the stage, Arthur nevertheless experiences something. Later that night, while his family sleeps, he takes his passport, empties all the money from his bank account, and vanishes. In time, still absent from his family, he begins to publish novels and becomes an internationally renowned author. His sons grow into men who manifest their inexplicable loss-Martin becomes a priest who does not believe in God; Ivan, a painter in constant artistic crisis; Eric, a businessman given to hallucinations and a fear of ghosts-even as they struggle to understand their father's disappearance and make their own places in the world.
Praise