The Hundred Brothers : A Novel

With a New Introduction by Jonathan Franzen

There's Rob, Bob, Tom, Paul, Ralph, and Noah; Nick, Dennis, Bertram, Russell, and Virgil. The doctor, the documentary filmmaker, and the sculptor in burning steal; the eldest, the youngest, and the celebrated "perfect" brother, Benedict. In Donald Antrim's mordantly funny novel The Hundred Brothers, our narrator and his colossal fraternity of ninety-eight brothers (one couldn't make it) have assembled in the crumbling library of their family's estate for a little sinister fun. Executed with the invention and intelligence of Barthelme and Pynchon, Antrim's taxonomy of male specimens is in equal proportions disturbing and absurdly hilarious.

“A fiercely intelligent writer . . . This is a bravura nightmare.” —The New York Times

“The author's surreal vision is both imaginative and wholly his own . . . A striking literary discovery.” —The Boston Globe

“Elegant, outrageously imagined, comic . . . Antrim exaggerates his narrator into hilarious existence.” —The New Yorker

“A fantasy that capers between atavistic ritual and inspired slapstick.” —Time