I'm Gone - by Jean Echenoz (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Winner of France's prestigious Prix Goncourt and a runaway bestseller, Jean Echenoz's I'm Gone is the ideal introduction to the sly wit, unique voice, and colorful imagination of "the master magician of the contemporary French novel" (The Washington Post). Nothing less than a heist caper, an Arctic adventure story, a biting satire of the art world, and a meditation on love and lust and middle age all rolled into one fast-paced, unpredictable, and deliriously entertaining novel, I'm Gone tells the story of an urbane art and antiques dealer who abandons his wife and career to pursue a memorably pathetic international crime spree.

"Crisp and erudite" (The Wall Street Journal), "seductive and delicately ironic" (The Economist), and with an unexpected sting in its tail, I'm Gone--translated by Mark Polizzotti--is a dazzling, postmodern subversion of narrative conventions and an amused look at the absurdities of modern life. With a wink and a nod and a keen eye for the droll detail, Echenoz invites the reader "to enjoy I'm Gone in the same devil-may-care spirit in which it is offered" (The Boston Sunday Globe).

Review Quotes

"A mystery that doubles as a sly work of serious literature. . . . This novel is a quick read and a true jewel."
--Kirkus Reviews

"I'm Gone combines the policier, the cultural essay and the urban sex novel to create a vivid, entertaining, hybrid."
--The New York Times Book Review

"Combining the offhand wit of Raymond Chandler with the narrative agility of Peter Høeg, Echenoz crafts a clever, philosophical tale."
--Publishers Weekly

"With a wink and a nod and an easy manner of style, Echenoz all but tells us outright not to take any of this too seriously--to enjoy I'm Gone in the same devil-may-care spirit in which it is offered."
--The Boston Sunday Globe

"A mordantly humorous work."
--Bookforum

"Echenoz both employs and subverts the convention of the adventure and detective genres in this sly send-up of contemporary art life."
--Library Journal

About the Author

Jean Echenoz is the author of three other novels in English translation and is the winner of numerous literary prizes, among them the Prix Medicis and the European Literature Jeopardy Prize. He lives in Paris. Mark Polizzotti has translated over forty books from the French, including works by Gustave Flaubert, Marguerite Duras, Andre Breton, Raymond Roussel, Patrick Modiano, and Jean Echenoz, and has written six of his own. He directs the publications program at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where he lives. Lily Tuck's novel "The News from Paraguay" won the 2004 National Book Award for fiction.