Jean-Philippe Toussaint

Matthew B. Smith

In this improbable "love story," Toussaint creates-- as in his other novels-- a lazy character who is completely obsessed with himself: how he does things and all the ways he might have done them, how he thinks, why he thinks the way that he thinks, how he might do or think otherwise. He does nothing all day long but take driving lessons, go grocery shopping, and spend endless hours with one of his driving school instructors, who later becomes his lover. All of this adds up to a character who doesn't really do anything. He is removed, aloof, but surprisingly very funny as he gets torn and twisted amid his uncanny ability to miss the point again and again. This character is fleshed out in Toussaint's remarkable style: we know him intimately and yet know almost nothing about him. "An original and significant writer, whose fiction can be as engaging as it is surprising." -The Times Literary Supplement "Toussaint is a genuinely funny writer . . . small erotic moments are captured perfectly . . . makes me long for more by Toussaint." -Kirkus Review "The combination of the absurd and the conscious intellect recalls such other French-language writers as Raymond Queneau in a style that is elegant, erudite, and joyously superficial." -Publishers Weekly

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