- This title is eligible for Amazon Fall Textbook promotions. Get unlimited free Two-Day Shipping for three months with a free trial of Amazon Prime. Add $100 worth of eligible textbooks to your cart to qualify. Sign up at checkout. New members only. Here's how (restrictions apply)
- Save $5 off $25, $10 off $50, or $15 off $100 when you pay with Bill Me Later®. Offer valid Oct 1, 2008 - Oct 12, 2008. Limited to items sold by Amazon.com. Subject to credit approval. One per customer. Enter code BMLDEALS at checkout. Here's how (restrictions apply)
Join Amazon Prime and ship Two-Day for free and Overnight for $3.99. Already a member? Sign in.
|
|||||||||
Special Offers and Product Promotions
Frequently Bought Together
Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie  (69)
$10.17
|
Wizard of the Crow: A novel by Ngugi Wa'Thiong'O |
Dog War by Anthony C. Winkler  (3)
$10.17
|
Under the Frangipani by Mia Couto (3)
$11.66
|
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz (198)
$8.40
|
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
A Congolese writer in his early 40s, Mabanckou teaches at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and has won numerous French prizes for previous novels; he makes his U.S. debut with this slim, witty monologue of a would-be serial killer. Whereas Bret Easton Ellis's Patrick Bateman (from American Psycho) was a Wall Street golden boy notoriously matter-of-fact in relating his shocking crimes, Mabanckou's Gregoire Nakobomayo is an insecure, unattractive metal worker in Africa, a long-winded neurotic trying to talk himself into murdering his prostitute girlfriend, Germaine. For Gergoire, the act would finally make him a worthy successor to his idol, legendary serial killer Angoualima, whose grave he periodically visits, seeking inspiration. Emerging over the course of Gregoire's ramblings is a general hatred of society, a Travis Bickle-esque duty to clean the scum off the streets, and a more personal, plaintive desire: "to exist... to be somebody." For all his cruel intentions and narcissism, Gregoire, ala Humbert Humbert, is an amusing, sympathetic character; readers may find themselves, if not exactly rooting for him, at least anxious to see if he can follow through with his grisly task. The all-important conclusion, however, is an abrupt and disappointing fizzler. The result is a very compelling (and very well-translated) exercise in literary voice.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From The New Yorker
"No gesture is as simple as that of bringing someone’s life to an end," the narrator declares at the start of this disturbing—and disturbingly funny—novel, the first to appear in English by Mabanckou, a French writer of Congolese descent. In an unnamed African country, the impoverished narrator prowls the streets of a blighted neighborhood called He-Who-Drinks-Water-Is-an-Idiot, owing to its abundance of saloons and "drunkenness contests." He fancies himself the heir of a notorious local serial killer, whose sadistic attacks on the rich and powerful he recounts in gruesome and loving detail, but he’s too neurotic to actually commit murder, endlessly debating the pros and cons of knives and guns. Although the title invokes "American Psycho," the book owes more to Dostoyevsky and Camus, as the narrator broods and dithers, longing to "exist at last."
Copyright © 2007 Click here to subscribe to The New Yorker
A Congolese writer in his early 40s, Mabanckou teaches at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and has won numerous French prizes for previous novels; he makes his U.S. debut with this slim, witty monologue of a would-be serial killer. Whereas Bret Easton Ellis's Patrick Bateman (from American Psycho) was a Wall Street golden boy notoriously matter-of-fact in relating his shocking crimes, Mabanckou's Gregoire Nakobomayo is an insecure, unattractive metal worker in Africa, a long-winded neurotic trying to talk himself into murdering his prostitute girlfriend, Germaine. For Gergoire, the act would finally make him a worthy successor to his idol, legendary serial killer Angoualima, whose grave he periodically visits, seeking inspiration. Emerging over the course of Gregoire's ramblings is a general hatred of society, a Travis Bickle-esque duty to clean the scum off the streets, and a more personal, plaintive desire: "to exist... to be somebody." For all his cruel intentions and narcissism, Gregoire, ala Humbert Humbert, is an amusing, sympathetic character; readers may find themselves, if not exactly rooting for him, at least anxious to see if he can follow through with his grisly task. The all-important conclusion, however, is an abrupt and disappointing fizzler. The result is a very compelling (and very well-translated) exercise in literary voice.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From The New Yorker
"No gesture is as simple as that of bringing someone’s life to an end," the narrator declares at the start of this disturbing—and disturbingly funny—novel, the first to appear in English by Mabanckou, a French writer of Congolese descent. In an unnamed African country, the impoverished narrator prowls the streets of a blighted neighborhood called He-Who-Drinks-Water-Is-an-Idiot, owing to its abundance of saloons and "drunkenness contests." He fancies himself the heir of a notorious local serial killer, whose sadistic attacks on the rich and powerful he recounts in gruesome and loving detail, but he’s too neurotic to actually commit murder, endlessly debating the pros and cons of knives and guns. Although the title invokes "American Psycho," the book owes more to Dostoyevsky and Camus, as the narrator broods and dithers, longing to "exist at last."
Copyright © 2007 Click here to subscribe to The New Yorker