cover image The Ignored

The Ignored

Bentley Little. Signet Book, $7.99 (432pp) ISBN 978-0-451-19258-5

At first it seems like a stroke of good luck when Bob Jones lands a job for which he is clearly unqualified. But his luck turns strange as Bob steadily fades from the attention of his coworkers. Within weeks, his arrival at work is marked by the absence of morning hellos. Work that he hasn't done piles up and no one seems to notice. So when Bob comes to work in a clown suit with knife in hand, and no one raises an eyebrow, it doesn't take us long to realize that Bob has been trapped in the Kafkaesque world of the Ignored--and this is just the beginning. With his artfully plain prose and Quixote-like narrative, Little dissects the deep and disturbing fear of anonymity all Americans feel towards what seems to be a cruelly faceless world. What Little (Dominion) has created, is nothing less than a nightmarishly brilliant tour de force of modern life in America. (June)