Skios
A Novel
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
A spiraling farce of mislaid identities, unruly passions, and delicious disorder unfolds on a private Greek island in this comedic masterpiece from Michael Frayn.
On the exclusive island of Skios, the world-renowned foundation's high-paying guests eagerly anticipate the annual keynote address by Dr. Norman Wilfred, an eminent authority on the scientific organization of science. Surprisingly youthful, handsome, and charming, Dr. Wilfred quickly captivates everyone, including Nikki, the foundation's attractive and efficient organizer.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the island, Nikki's old friend Georgie finds herself trapped in a remote villa with a pompous, balding individual also named Dr. Norman Wilfred, who has lost his whereabouts, luggage, temper, and increasingly, all sense of reality—everything except the well-traveled text of his lecture on the scientific organization of science.
In Skios, Michael Frayn, the farceur "by whom all others must be measured" (CurtainUp), delivers a story of personal and professional disintegration that probes his eternal theme of how we know what we know, all while transporting readers to the outer limits of hilarity. This spiraling farce showcases upright academics, gilded captains of industry, ambitious climbers, and dotty philanthropists in a satirical exploration of mistaken identities and the chaos that ensues.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Frayn's latest (after Afterlife) is a wacky case of mistaken identity set on the luxurious Greek island of Skios. Nikki Hook is arranging the Fred Toppler Foundation's annual gala, a celebration of culture attended by academic heavyweights and international dignitaries. But when she goes to the airport to pick up the keynote lecturer, Dr. Norman Wilfred, an eminent theorist and pedantic bore, she instead collects Oliver Fox. Oliver, a playboy who has come to Skios to seduce the beautiful Georgie, decides on a whim, when Georgie's flight is delayed, to usurp Dr. Wilfred's identity. Meanwhile, through a series of absurd misunderstandings, the real Dr. Wilfred is whisked away to Oliver's borrowed villa where lonely Georgie waits. Nikki soon becomes enamored with the duplicitous lothario she believes to be Dr. Wilfred, while Dr. Wilfred falls for Georgie. The novel is a lacerating satire, with characters propelled by equal parts accident and self-interest in a world in which academic and political luminaries are as vapid as the fraud they fawn over. While entertaining, the absence of sympathetic characters keeps the stakes low and the dramatic tension weak.
