The unnamed narrator of Francis Bacon’s Armchair has just been released from an extended stay at a psychi- atric hospital and now has only one objective: to shut himself away in his apartment and contemplate the best way to restart his life. But his obsession with Cath- ie, a young woman he met during his convalescence, drives him out of his bedroom one night in search of a telephone—which leads him two floors below into the apartment of his morbidly obese neighbor, Sauvage.
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The unnamed narrator of Francis Bacon’s Armchair has just been released from an extended stay at a psychi- atric hospital and now has only one objective: to shut himself away in his apartment and contemplate the best way to restart his life. But his obsession with Cath- ie, a young woman he met during his convalescence, drives him out of his bedroom one night in search of a telephone—which leads him two floors below into the apartment of his morbidly obese neighbor, Sauvage. Sauvage is a translator overwhelmed by his current project, The Dictionary of Rare and Incurable Diseases, and by the inherent difficulties of his profession. The narrator begins paying regular visits to his mysterious neighbor, and the two isolated men develop a bizarre relationship dominated by fear, jealousy, and mutual fascination. A hypnotic and philosophically dense novel, Francis Bacon’s Armchair deftly weaves between explo- rations of loneliness, language, and obsession.
Sébastien Brebel was born in 1971 in Argenteuil, France. He lives in Nantes, France where he teaches Philosophy, and is the author of three novels, of which this is his second to appear in English.