Man Walks into a Room

“Casually dazzling . . . thoroughly riveting.”—Entertainment Weekly

The luminous and unforgettable first novel about an amnesiac professor that introduced an astonishing voice in fiction, now available in a beautiful paperback edition for a new generation to discover.

Samson Greene, a young and popular professor at Columbia, is found wandering in the Nevada desert. When his wife, Anna, arrives in Las Vegas to take him home to New York City, she finds a man who remembers nothing, not even his own name. The removal of a small brain tumor saves Samson’s life, but his memories beyond the age of twelve have been permanently erased.

Man Walks into a Room is the story of a keenly intelligent, sensitive man returned to a life in which everything is strange and new. An emigrant from his own life, set free from all that once defined him, Samson believes he has nothing left to lose. When a charismatic scientist asks him to participate in a bold experiment, he agrees. Launched into a turbulent journey that takes him to the furthest extremes of solitude and intimacy, what he gains is nothing short of the revelation of what it means to be human.