The Evenings

I work in an office. I take cards out of a file. Once I have taken them out, I put them back in again. That is it. Twenty-three-year-old Frits - office worker, daydreamer, teller of inappropriate jokes - finds life absurd and inexplicable.  He lives with his parents, who drive him mad. He has terrible, disturbing dreams of death and destruction. Sometimes he talks to a toy rabbit. This is the story of ten evenings in Frits's life at the end of December, as he drinks, smokes, sees friends, aimlessly wanders the gloomy city streets and tries to make sense of the minutes, hours and days that stretch before him. Darkly funny and mesmerising, The Evenings takes the tiny, quotidian triumphs and heartbreaks of our everyday lives and turns them into a work of brilliant wit and profound beauty. 'A masterpiece... What can I say that will put this book where it belongs, in readers' hands and minds?... Reve keeps the reader breathless right through to the grand finale.' -- Tim Parks, Guardian 'Should cause many readers to revise their opinions of The Catcher in the Rye. In all fairness to Salinger, The Evenings is so much better.' -- Irish Times