REVIEW

The Independent on Sunday
may 2001

Switters is a CIA agent unlike any other I've come across in fiction: an anti-conformist renegade, a philosopher-poet man of action, and a dirty old man who can say 'vagina' in 71 languages. While running an errand in Peru, he gains enlightenment in exchange for the use of his legs. Then, not being one to compromise, he spends the rest of the book trying to get his mobility back too.

Tom Robbins is a thoroughly postmodern guru who takes the most interesting political, cultural, artistic, religious, historical and new age theories, mixes them with his own utterly original ones and then creates outlandish characters to act as his mouthpiece. He never uses one word where he could use a few paragraphs of digressions, anecdotes and jokes, but, as long as you don't take it too seriously, you're guaranteed to learn something.

CRITICAL ACCLAIM

'Tom Robbins has a grasp on things that dazzles the brain and he's also a world-class storyteller' - Thomas Pynchon

'In his seventh, and perhaps most complex novel to date, Robbins shines as brilliantly as he has in the past...superb current social commentary' - The New York Post

'... one of the wildest and most entertaining novelists in the world' - The Financial Times

NEWS

April 2001
Earlier this year Tom Robbins took part in an online question and answer session, which raised the question of whether his novel killed Elvis - find out at booksunlimited.co.uk