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J.M. Coetzee’s highly creative ‘Diary of a Bad Year.’

  • 1/2/08 at 3:00 PM

This new novel by the South Africa–born laureate is quite literally layered — three concurrent narratives run in horizontal stripes throughout the book. The upper layer consists of curmudgeonly essays about the death of human compassion; the middle one is the aging essayist's own diary; and the lowest, narrated by his typist and caretaker, tells the story of how her boyfriend connives to rob the writer. It's a deep and gripping story, full of tension … but how do you read it? From left to right, of course!

Diary of a Bad Year

J.M. Coetzee
Penguin
$24.95

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Editors
Lane Brown and Mark Graham
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Jessica Coen
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