ADA - by Mark Haber (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

From "one of the most rigorous and serious--and anachronistic--novelists working today" (The Washington Post) comes a raucous new tale plumbing the depths of ego and ardor.

In a remote country in Europe, Gerard Desacroux IV, petty tyrant and French nationalist, wants nothing more than to be reunited with Ada, the object of his desire ever since their brief fling in Paris years before. Though Ada is on her way to visit, there are the unfortunate matters of civil unrest, assassination attempts, and Ada's affluent (and highly inconvenient) husband to contend with before bliss is attained. Despite it all, Desacroux IV is determined that nothing--neither war, nor ominous weather, nor the rising swell of indignant peasants--shall stand between him and Ada.

Told with Mark Haber's trademark exuberant absurdity, Ada is a comedy about the mania of power, unrequited love, and the solitude of authority.

Review Quotes

Praise for Ada

"Deliciously ridiculous: complicated, high-minded, and silly." --Publishers Weekly, starred review

"A sharp, taut portrait of curdled, angry leadership." --Kirkus, starred review

"A joy to read and an introspective, satirical look into our most privileged and wealthy members of society." --Madeline Schultz, Chicago Review of Books

"Reading Ada confirmed not what I suspected but what I already knew: With each of his books, Mark Haber is building, brick by brick and saint by saint, his immense and immaculate cathedral where style is plot and plot is style. Here, at last and again, the passionate gospel." --Rodrigo Fresán, author of Melvill

"The book is deeply funny, absurdist in its mix of high and low culture, a sentence-by-sentence gem that not only exposes the dark soul of the aristocracy, but manages to fully humanize Desacroux, giving him just enough heart so that he is not a caricature of wealth but a victim of a system that values bloodlines over brains." --Michael Keenen Gutierrez, Southern Review of Books

"With winding sentences puckered and punched by commas, Haber delivers aesthetic pleasure, profligate humor, and terrifying truth. As with the best and sharpest satires, we peasants outside the gates have no choice but to laugh with eyes open wide." --Amanda Goldblatt, author of Hard Mouth

"Peering down the cliff of Mark Haber's Ada, one is awed, horrified, and riveted by the motion of this satire on power and mania. A story of desire, betrayal, and possession reveals how tyranny blooms from the petty, this pursuit of a world birthed by chasing the thing that consumes us." --Alina Stefanescu, author of My Heresies

"Ada is a rigorously funny novel, an eccentric and visionary work. Once finished, it's hard to return to reality." --Andrea Bajani, author of If You Kept A Record of Sins

In Ada, "we find an ecstatic, recursive whir of self-recrimination and stalwart pride, desire and disgust, nascent hope and extreme vexation, and not a few concerns about poisoning. At a mere 90 pages, you can read it in one sitting, and should, for the full effect." --Emily Temple, LitHub

"Hard to imagine so much utter hilarity in so slim a work, but Mark Haber's fourth novel is, by far, the funniest book this reader has read in ages. With enough wit and charming ribaldry to give your rectus abdominis a proper workout, Ada is the tale of a duncical autocrat ruling his realm not by principled fiat, but instead by vibes and whim. With its absurdist bent, delectably wending prose, and some truly unforgettable scenes, Ada is first-rate farce at its uproarious best." --Jeremy Garber, Powell's Books

"Reading Haber is like watching a great actor take the stage and risk it all with every word. And Haber's sentences--manic, recursive, always surprising--are among the finest in contemporary literature. Of his many obsessives, Desacroux may be his funniest and most frighteningly human, a character that is as timeless as he is inescapably a symbol of our age. This is an essential American novelist working at the height of his powers." --Brian Castleberry, author of The Californians and Nine Shiny Objects

Praise for Mark Haber

"Haber is one of the most rigorous and serious--and anachronistic--novelists working today." --Becca Rothfeld, The Washington Post

"Haber's [writing] is fluent and compelling, often rhapsodic, with a cumulative power to its repetitions." --Hal Jensen, Times Literary Supplement

"Mark Haber creates something entirely new, and greatly impressive, within the Bernhardian universe." --Chloe Aridjis, author of Thin Skin

About the Author

Mark Haber was born in Washington, D.C. and grew up in Florida. His debut novel, Reinhardt's Garden (2019, Coffee House Press), was longlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Award. His second novel, Saint Sebastian's Abyss (2022, Coffee House Press), was named a best book of 2022 by the New York Public Library and Literary Hub. Mark's fiction has appeared in Guernica, Southwest Review, and Air/Light, among others. Mark lives in Minneapolis.