In his first novel, Jan Faktor confronts deadly serious subjects with subversive humour. Schornstein, the querulous first-person narrator tries to forget about his heart attack and has come to terms with his rare metabolic disease. What he can’t come to terms with is that payment of his therapy is suddenly stopped. This marks the start of Schornstein’s mission to assert his rights and bring about justice, getting caught up in the wheels of academic and health system bureaucracy in the process.
With detective-like instinct, Schornstein questions doctors, gathers information and tracks down patients. At frightening speed, his life falls apart, his beloved wife is driven to despair and he begins to lose his identity. In grotesquely comic scenes, Schornstein reflects upon his Jewish origins, smiles at his self-pity, looks after down-and-outs in the park and the unkempt Ms. Schwan from the ground floor – and is eventually saved by love.
Laconic precision, a sobering tone and astonishing wit in best Czech narrative tradition characterize this novel and add literary glamour even to physical faux pas. By addressing the steadily growing milieu of people who have come down in the world, Schornstein becomes a trend-setting piece of work, literature from the crumbling edges of society.
The joker shines through this novel, just as it does in his poems, but your laughter sometimes gets stuck in your throat. Faktor uses drastic language full of political incorrectnesses. He is not afraid of ugliness and indecencies that verge on the painful. (Berliner Zeitung)
