Mac's Problem (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780811227322)

Mac is currently unemployed and lives on his wife's earnings. An avid reader, he decides at the age of sixty to keep a diary. Mac's wife, a dyslexic, thinks he is simply wasting his time and risking sliding further into depression--but Mac persists, and is determined that this diary won't turn into a novel. However, one day, he has a chance encounter with a neighbor, a successful author of a collection of enigmatic, willfully obscure stories. Mac decides that he will read, revise, and improve his neighbor's stories, which are mostly narrated by a ventriloquist who has lost the ability to speak in different voices. As Mac embarks on this task, he finds that the stories have a strange way of imitating life. Or is life imitating the stories? As the novel progresses, Mac becomes more adrift from reality, and both he and we become ever more immersed in literature: a literature haunted by death, but alive with the sheer pleasure of writing.

Author: Enrique Vila-Matas
ISBN-10: 0811227324
ISBN-13: 9780811227322
Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
Language: English
Published: 04/30/2019
Pages: 224
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.50lbs
Size: 7.90h x 5.10w x 0.70d

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 02/25/2019
Kirkus Reviews 02/15/2019