The Society of Others: A Novel

“Hovers between the wisecracking observational realism of Salinger and the parable dream space of Kafka. . . . A paean to humanism and perhaps faith.” –Salon“One part spy novel, one part mystical fable. . . . Forges a provocative amalgam of the humane and the homicidal.” –San Diego Tribune “Both a joy to read and intellectually challenging.” –The Baltimore Sun“A smart, engrossing allegorical taleÉa dystopic fable for the twenty-first century.” –Montreal Gazette"This is a novel I would dearly love to have written yet one whose message is an antidote for envy. It is exciting, funny, wise, and beautifully written."—Piers Paul Read, author of Alive"This extraordinary book, a sort of wild combination of Kafka and The Catcher in the Rye, whirls with its catatonically dysfunctional hero into a maelstrom of violence and danger to learn from oppressed strangers what really matters in a human life, and to face the most terrifying of interrogators, the self. The reader will not escape unchanged."—Jill Paton Walsh"It’s a challenge as well as a pleasure, but The Society of Others is a novel that demands attention. William Nicholson is someone we are going to hear a good deal more about."—Peter Stanford, author of Heaven: A Guide to the Undiscovered Country"It is thrilling in every sense, but it is also hypnotic, fast-moving, and intellectually challenging, as it twists and turns, leaving you confused, uncertain, even uncomfortable, and yet utterly hooked. A philosophical master class, it is quite staggeringly good."—Geoffrey Wansell, Daily Mail