“Peering down the cliff of Mark Haber's Ada, one is awed, horrified, and riveted by the motion of this satire on power and mania"
From “one of the most rigorous and serious—and anachronistic—novelists working today” (The Washington Post) comes a raucous new tale plumbing the depths of ego and ardor. In a remote country in Europe, Gerard Desacroux IX, petty tyrant and French nationalist, wants nothing more than to be reunited with Ada, the object of his desire ever since their brief fling in Paris years before. Though Ada is on her way to visit, there are the unfortunate matters of civil unrest, assassination attempts, and Ada’s affluent (and highly inconvenient) husband to contend with before bliss is attained. Despite it all, Desacroux IX is determined that nothing—neither war, nor ominous weather, nor the rising swell of indignant peasants—shall stand between him and Ada. Told with Mark Haber’s trademark exuberant absurdity, Ada is a comedy about the mania of power, unrequited love, and the solitude of authority.
“With winding sentences puckered and punched by commas, Haber delivers aesthetic pleasure, profligate humor, and terrifying truth. As with the best and sharpest satires, we peasants outside the gates have no choice but to laugh with eyes open wide."
“Reading Ada confirmed not what I suspected but what I already knew: With each of his books, Mark Haber is building, brick by brick and saint by saint, his immense and immaculate cathedral where style is plot and plot is style. Here, at last and again, the passionate gospel."
'Lesser Ruins' is a tragic and exquisite novel about distraction
American Author Mark Haber Appointed Visiting Professor at Freie Universität Berlin
Scott Semegran Reviews Saint Sebastian's Abyss
Best Books for Adults 2022
Publisher's Weekly Best Books of Summer 2022
Mark Haber's 'Saint Sebastian's Abyss': Art critic frenemies bond
What Makes Art Great? Two Comic Novels Hazard a Guess.
Saint Sebastian’s Abyss
Saint Sebastian's Abyss