Author Description

A tour de force of distorted reality with the story within a story and game-playing narrative of an Andrew Crumey novel Mr Dick or The Tenth Book blends Charles Dickens and characters from his novels into a quest to discover the ending of Dickens' last novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood which was left uncompleted at the author's death. Ohl's narrator, Francois Daumal nurtures a passion for Dickens. From the moment his young eyes first light on the opening line of David Copperfield - ' Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages will show ' he is addicted. He systematically devours everything Dickens ever wrote, and develops a particular obsession with Edwin Drood. He becomes an expert on the subject, steeped in Dickensian studies, commentaries, critiques of all kinds, from the most specialist to the most exotically alternative. His discovery as a student that his obsession is shared by another, the smoothly urbane and ruthlessly ambitious Michel Mangematin, marks the beginning of a deadly rivalry that will be pursued over the following years with not only academic and worldly success at stake but also love, self-esteem, and even personal identity.