[nannysuetle]

Two Austrians, Frank and Heinz, exchange letters which keep crossing. They talk about banalities: the trip Karin, the daughter of one, is about to take with schoolmates; the acquisition of a thermometer. But slowly their narratives take bizarre turns. Someone called Ulf keeps signing their letters at the bottom, and it seems the resort Karin travels harbors a serial killer who?s evaded detective (amateurs included) for decades. As the letters multiply, the cast of characters grows to include poets of doubtable quality, several people named Ulf (one of whom may be the person who signs all their letters), disguised nuns on a mission to kidnap a sea captain with two bodies which remain apart exactly 3.5 meters, a group of detectives who?ve created a microscopic replica of a town down to the people who live in it, a woman who can change colors according to her mood, and other oddities.

The novel also reveals the secret of the world, currently hidden in Canca, Brazil.

The Feverhead is an unusual novel. I?d put it on the same level as Flann O?Brien?s The Third Policeman: it?s a playful work that draws the reader into an alternative to the real world. It?s also modernist take on the epistolary novel. This novel is not just composed of letters but of letters within letters and of letters written by several people (who argue about what they write).

The novel makes little sense and seems to head towards an unsatisfying ending until the author hits the reader with an amazing twist on the third letter from the end and we smile at his cleverness and prepare to immediately forget the novel. Then we read the second letter from the end and everything falls into place at last. Then we read the last and you?ll either think Wolfgang Bauer is either a genius or just insane. As The Feverhead shows the difference is smaller than we think.