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The ConversionsAuthor: Harry Mathews American Literature Series October 1997 192 pages, 5.5 x 8.5 Paperback, 1-56478-166-6 Retail Paperback Price: Our Paperback Price: $9.56 
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Book Description
At a dinner party hosted by a wealthy New Yorker, a guest receives a gold adze, the coveted prize in a worm race. When the man dies the next day, he bequeaths, according to a stipulation in his will, the bulk of his fortune to the adze's possessor, provided he answer three mysterious questions relating to the artifact's history.
In his search the owner encounters a menagerie of eccentric personalities: an ancient revolutionary in a Parisian prison, a ludicrous pair of gibberish-speaking brothers, and customs officials who spend their time reading contraband materials. He soon finds himself immersed in the centuries-long history of a persecuted religious sect and in an odyssey that begins in a forgotten fog-covered town in Scotland and ends on the ocean floor off the coast of an uncharted French island.
A wild goose chase through a remarkably unusual world, The Conversions invites both reader and protagonist to participate in a quest for answers to an elusive game.
About the Author
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Harry Mathews was born and raised on New York's Upper East Side but left America for France in 1952 shortly after graduating from Harvard. He has written over a dozen books including the novels Cigarettes, The Journalist, and Tlooth, along with collected stories, The Human Country, and essays, The Case of the Persevering Maltese. Mathews is also the only American member of the Oulipo—the Workshop for Potential Literature— France's longest, and most active, literary movement. He divides his time between Paris, Key West, and New York. |
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Praise
"The tragicomedy of human ingenuity, which insists upon interpreting the facts of experience even when they are senseless, baffling, or banal . . . a remarkable extension and exploration of the odd fictional devices invented by Raymond Roussel."—Edmund White, New York Times"Exquisitely stitched narratives, and [a] sense of wonder—verging on awe—at the world's regal strangeness . . . inspires [Mathews's] novels . . . Extraordinary imagination . . . Told with the strictest economy, without extraneous justification or explanation."—Times Literary Supplement
More Information
Also by Harry Mathews:20 Lines a Day
Cigarettes
My Life in CIA
Singular Pleasures
The Case of the Persevering Maltese
The Human Country
The Journalist
The Sinking of the Odradek Stadium
Tlooth