At once confined and liberated by his madness, the hero and narrator of I Haer Voices takes us on journeys through his private, transfigured city. The vehicle is his own deranged mind, fueled by the absurdities of modern life. Lovers of Beckett and Ionesco will recognize much in Paul Abelman’s world, where the fantastic and the real coexist in a hilarious, disquieting detente. This first American edition brings to a new audience a literary masterpiece which was originally published in 1958 by Olympia Press in Paris; Maurice Girodias claimed that it was the book that gave him the greatest pleasure to publish.
The narrator of I Hear Voices is a young schizophrenic who, on the wings of his madness transports himself, and the reader, through a wondrously transfigured city where the real and the fantastic blend together in a seamless enchantment. The continual stream and buzz of events is often comical, occasionally wrenching, and always unpredictable. Encounters with Miss Carpet, The Commissioner, Merkitt, and Mrs. Oil, among others, are filled with poignant satire and disquieting honesty in this vision of the fragmentation of contemporary life. I Hear Voices is an unforgettable adventure, and a major literary experience.
