The Cartoon Life and Loves of a Stupid Man
FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED HANGDOG SOULS
As an independent comic book store owner and the heir to a pharmaceutical fortune, Philippe Favrier lives a life that straddles the real world and the realm of fiction. Struggling with mental illness, Philippe relies on his wife, Marilyne - a successful surgeon with her own haunting secrets - and a groundbreaking drug his father developed. Bound by their shared pain, they navigate their haunted lives, forever shadowed by the heart-rending loss of their baby, Antoine.
Their fragile world begins to crumble when Philippe catches a disturbing glimpse of an unfamiliar profile in the mirror. And his uneasiness is further fueled by an anonymous comic strip that arrives at his store, featuring a character bearing an eerie resemblance to him.
Is Marilyne hiding an affair? Is she connected to the comic strip that's tormenting him? As he probes deeper, Philippe is drawn into a web of deception, where the lines between reality and imagination blur - until his investigations into Marilyne and the malicious comic artist at last reveal the tragic truth.
PRAISE FOR MARC JOAN
'The absorbing winter escape of a read that I had been seeking'
Prashanth Gopalan, Strange Horizons
'Riddled with mysteries, the darkest of human emotions, and it is a book that will instigate curiosity, yet send a shiver down your spine each moment you turn a page'
India Today
'I find the astonishing stories collected -- and arranged chronologically by historical era -- to be consistently enthralling, amazing, and powerful. They are beautifully written and filled with both sharp characterizations of conflicted, complicated people and rich, multi-layered detail about the states, landscapes, history, and lingering myths of southern India. . . . I recommend Hangdog Souls heartily to all thoughtful readers who long to be immersed in a fulsomely realized world that skillfully combines very old mythologies and phenomenally new reflections on what they can still mean'
Jerrold E. Hogle, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of English, University of Arizona
'A complex and wildly ambitious novel which makes no apologies for bringing together contrasting genres and influences - from historical fiction to the Gothic, from intergenerational family drama to "realist" fiction, from supernatural horror to sci-fi, all infused with elements of philosophy, myth and spiritualism and conveyed in rich and beautiful prose'
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PRAISE FOR THE CARTOON LIFE AND LOVES OF A STUPID MAN
'My favourite book this year was Marc Joan's forthcoming The Cartoon Life and Loves of a Stupid Man. Set in France, it's about a seller of comic books who becomes convinced his wife is having an affair. What I loved about the novel was its luxuriant language, its vivid descriptions, and the depiction of a man descending into a self-made hell. Jean-Paul Sartre, who loved comic books as a kid, wrote that hell is other people. Not necessarily. Hell is often simply one's self, that most intimate of strangers'
Anil Menon for The Asian Age
'A stylistically brilliant novel with an extremely unreliable and troubled narrator. At first a funny and endearing portrayal of the frustrations of a comic book shop owner with a beautiful and much more successful wife, the plot gradually takes a darker turn and descends into tragedy and horror. The sympathetic but obtuse central character and command of language and dialogue reminded me of the works of Nabokov and John Kennedy Toole. Strongly recommended.'
Goodreads reviewer, 5*
'I love love love this book. It is so deranged and smart and creative.'
Goodreads reviewer, 5*
'It's a slow burn of a story, well written and plotted, and progressively claustrophobic. I was totally sucked into the book, and had to tear myself away last night in order to go to sleep'
Goodreads reviewer, 5*
