The Lunatic
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- $2.99
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- $2.99
Publisher Description
This novel reveals that lunacy is by no means restricted to the village madman. . . . "By far the funniest book I've read in a decade" (The Washington Post Book World).
In Jamaica, Aloysius is tolerated by his neighbors, but forced to eke out a living by doing odd jobs and use the hospitable woodlands for shelter. Starved of human companionship, he has running conversations with trees and plants.
Then love, or a peculiar version of it, comes to Aloysius in the form of a solidly built German lady, Inga Schmidt, who has come to the Caribbean to photograph the flora and fauna. They will embark on a romance and a series of misadventures that may turn the island, and their lives, upside down . . .
"Every country (if she's lucky) gets the Mark Twain she deserves, and Winkler is ours, bristling with savage Jamaican wit." —Marlon James
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A madman named Aloysius lives alone in the Jamaican bush until a German photojournalist named Inga snaps pictures of him as he sleeps. She soon moves in with him, and their life together is filled with misunderstandings, violence and much sex. In this tale of erotic fun in the sun, trees and animals are personifiedfor example, when Inga, in a fit of anger, bites a tree trunk, the tree cries in pain. But this fanciful novel also has a political edge: Inga comes to believe that poor Jamaicans should hate those who are rich, and she promotes an uprising. Although The Lunatic can be read as a comic novel, it also can be considered a warning against both greed and apathy.
