The Bar Tab Also Rises

Travel back to the early 1920s and meet the Lost Generation's most dysfunctional expatriates.

Jake Barnes has a problem. Actually, he has several: an interpretive dancer friend who won't stop talking about a cartoon rat named Ratty Rat, a drinking habit that could float a small yacht, and an inconvenient love for Brett Ashley-a woman so beautiful that every man who falls for her ends up bankrupt, hospitalized, or mysteriously dead. When Brett announces she's traveling to Spain and Jake's entire circle of wealthy, self-absorbed friends decides to tag along, he agrees to chronicle their misadventures. This is his first mistake.

What follows is a descent into chaos that escalates from "mildly absurd" to "completely unhinged." There are debates about theme parks that don't exist. There are circus performers frozen solid on bus roofs. There is a Spanish festival called the "Running of the Supreme Roosters" that makes traditional bullfighting look safe. And through it all, Jake watches his friends spend money they don't have, drink wine by the barrel, and remain gloriously unaware that Brett's curse is picking them off one by one.

By the time Jake realizes the only way to survive is to stop loving the wrong woman, he's already knee-deep in supernatural poultry, vampire-obsessed artists, and the wreckage of everyone's poor life choices. The bar tab is rising-and someone's going to have to pay.

Pull up a chair and relax with this literary parody, three drinks past good judgment.