![“One of the best books of the year.” - Jeff Glor, CBS Author Talk “…with wry humor and a steady hand […] The narrator’s games never fail to entertain, even if he is constantly changing the rules.“ - The New Yorker “It’s a breathless work t](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5c76f14fe4afe930fba5cc8f/5c76f8650852293f484b522d/5c76f8650852293f484b5232/1551976355693/guide-screen-4.png)
"F. Scott Fitzgerald meets Wes Anderson" (The Village Voice) in this inventive and witty debut about a young man’s quest to become a writer and the misadventures in life and love that take him around the globe.
2014 PEN/Hemingway Award, Honorable Mention
Barnes & Noble Discover Pick
American Booksellers Association “Indie Next” Pick
ALA Notable Book
Prix de L’Inapperçu, Finalist
Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, Long List
Flaherty-Dunnan Prize, Long List
“One of the best books of the year.” - Jeff Glor, CBS Author Talk
“…with wry humor and a steady hand […] The narrator’s games never fail to entertain, even if he is constantly changing the rules.“ - The New Yorker
“It’s a breathless work that celebrates literary tradition, while making a strong case that its author belongs on the shelf besides his forebears.” - Time Out NY
A “wildly recursive fun house of a novel […] there’s plenty to relish in this noteworthy debut.” - NPR Books
“Playfully weird…I’d call this book ‘postmodern,’ but that makes it sound like it’s not as pleasurable to read as it is.” – Meg Wolitzer, NPR.com’s “Hidden Gems”
“…the most unreliable narrator to be found in recent fiction. […] This is really and truly a literary novel, about writing and writers, creativity and lies” – The Toronto Star
"[A] work that feels both classic and novel, a winking shuffle through narrative tropes that mines each for all the good it contains. It is, in short, a fantastic read, hopefully only the first of many to come from Jansma." - Maclean's
"...a clever, tightly paced novel of ever-upping stakes." - Vogue
"Kristopher Jansma is sure to be one of 2013’s new literary heavyweights." - Brooklyn Daily Eagle
"...a writer of extreme promise, who seems to belong to an older generation." - Electric Literature's Recommended Reading
"[An] arresting debut [...] Jansma’s characters deftly explore the blurred lines between fact and fiction, discovering the shades of truth that lie in between." - Publisher's Weekly
“Jansma performs a veritable circus act here[…] this canny, seductive, and utterly transfixing tale about the magic of storytelling and the misery of writing is told by an itinerant, chameleonic writer who calls himself Nobody. ” - Booklist
"A writer to watch." - Library Journal