The Escape A Novel [Paperback]

'The more I knew of Haffner,' writes Adam Thirlwell inThe Escape, 'the more real he became, this was true. And, simultaneously, Haffner disappeared.'

In a forgotten spa town snug in the Alps, at the end of the twentieth century, Haffner is seeking a cure, more women, and a villa that belonged to his late wife. But really he is trying to escape: from his family, his lovers, his history, his entire Haffnerian condition. For Haffner is 78.

Haffner, in other words, is too old to be grown up.

A witty, irreverent, and elegiac new novel. The New York Times Book Review

A novel where the humor is melancholic, the melancholy mischievous, and the talent startling. Milan Kundera

A wittily observant young author . . . Audacious. Joyce Carol Oates, The New York Review of Books

Effortlessly blends reflections on memory with, say, hanky-panky in bathtubs. The result--enough to shock even a dedicated philanderer--is an accessibly cerebral story of one man and his tragic libido. Scott Indrisek, Time Out (New York)

InThe Escape, you can practically see Bellow's Augie March, Roth's Mickey Sabbath and Martin Amis's John Self applauding, ghost-like, from the margins . . . The novel fizzes with intelligence, verbal skill and humour. Simon Baker, The Observer (London)

The Escapeis one of the best British novels I've read this year for one reason: Thirlwell's prose. At once effervescent and elegant, his narrative voice lifts the novel's lecherous comedy beyond the sublunary lovers' antics into a more rarefied sphere . . . The novel abounds, from start to finish, with graceful turns of phrase and slanting insights . . . What rescuesThe Escapeis no deus ex machina, no twist in its plot . . . but instead the cadences and harmonies of a very fine composition. Sarah Churchwell, The Guardian

Witty and engaging, erudite but fleet and sinulF