The Ticking Heart

"Expansive and imaginative." --Kirkus Reviews

"Irreverent and bursting prose... Fans of Mark Leyner will enjoy Kaufman's messy string of outrageous scenarios." --Publishers Weekly

Part modern fable, part detective novel, a journey through grief in the imaginary world of Metaphoria.

One cold winter night, Charlie shares a cab with a stranger in a purple hat. As they talk, a cloud of purple smoke overwhelms him and he wakes up to find himself behind the only desk in the Epiphany Detective Agency. Charlie, as it turns out, is trapped in Metaphoria, an otherworldly place that reality has forgotten, a place where everything means something else. His first client is Shirley Miller, who insists on hiring Charlie to find her husband's missing heart. In fact, she's so insistent that she replaces Charlie's heart with a bomb. He has twenty-four hours to find Twiggy Miller's heart - and its meaning - or his own will explode.

Tender and brutal, optimistic and despairing, this modern fable by the author of the cult hit All My Friends Are Superheroes takes a fresh look at what it means to fall into, and out of, love.

Publisher: Coach House Books
Published: 09/17/2019
Pages: 176
Weight: 0.5lbs
Size: 7.50h x 5.00w x 0.60d
ISBN: 9781552453896


Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 07/01/2019
Publishers Weekly 08/19/2019

About the Author
Andrew Kaufman lives and writes in Toronto. He was born in Wingham, Ontario, making him the second-most-famous Canadian writer to come from Wingham (after Alice Munro, of course). He is the author of international bestseller All My Friends are Superheroes, The Waterproof Bible, ReLit Award-winner The Tiny Wife, and Born Weird, which was named a Best Book of the Year by The Globe and Mail and was shortlisted for the Leacock award for humor.