The Inside Out Man

Strydom (The Raft) meticulously constructs a house of cards that seems poised to collapse at any moment, taking its protagonist, and his entire world, with it. After jazz pianist Bent Croud plays a debauched weekend party at the sprawling estate of Leonard Fry for an exorbitant amount of money, he is made a very strange offer: Bent can have the run of Leonard’s house, cars, and everything else, and all he has to do is feed Leonard through a slot in the door of a locked room that Leonard will remain in for one year. It’s a novel way for Bent to escape the grind of dive bars and loneliness, and he even finds something like love with Leonard’s charming companion, Jolene, but strange things start to happen, and he begins to question Leonard’s true motives and ultimately reality. This exploration of identity and memory reads like a paranoiac’s fever dream. Imagery right out of a Boschian nightmare—“one fleshy mass with flailing arms and legs, like the rough draft of a new Hindu god”—helps to propel the unsettling, compelling tale all the way through to its twisted, fitting finale. (Nov.)