Summary
In the mid-19th century, in the imaginary town of Quinnipak, a whole community gathers around the beautiful Jun Reihl and her husband, director of the glassworks. Each inhabitant nurses a secret passion: Pekish, eccentric inventor of the “humanophone,” an orchestra in which each player sings only a single note; his young assistant Pehnt, a foundling forever lost in an enormous jacket; the “widow” Abegg; Horeau, the French architect dreaming of grand transparent constructions; and Elisabeth, the steam locomotive. A luxuriant, singular novel built like a fugue. Winner of the 1995 Prix Médicis étranger.
