The Teleportation Accident

2014 Longlist

History happened while you were hungover.

When you haven’t had sex in a long time, it feels like the worst thing
that could ever happen to anyone.

If you’re living in Germany in the 1930s, it probably isn’t.

But that’s no consolation to Egon Loeser, whose carnal misfortunes will push him from the experimental theatres of Berlin to the absinthe bars of Paris to the physics laboratories of Los Angeles, trying all the while to solve two mysteries: whether it was really a deal with Satan that claimed the life of his hero, the great Renaissance stage designer Adriano Lavicini; and why a handsome, clever, charming, modest guy like him can’t, just once in a while, get himself laid.

From the author of the acclaimed Boxer, Beetle comes a historical novel that doesn’t know what year it is; a noir novel that turns all the lights on; a romance novel that arrives drunk to dinner; a science fiction novel that can’t remember what ‘isotope’ means; a stunningly inventive, exceptionally funny, dangerously unsteady and (largely) coherent novel about sex, violence, space, time, and how the best way to deal with history is to ignore it.

Let’s hope the party was worth it.

(From Publisher)

About the Author

Ned Beauman was born in 1985 and lives in London. His debut novel, Boxer, Beetle was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and the Desmond Elliot Prize and won the Writer’s Guild Award for Best Fiction Book and the Goldberg Prize for Outstanding Debut Fiction. In 2011 he was chosen by The Culture Show as one of the twelve Best New British Writers. His second novel, The Teleportation Accident was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2012.

Librarian’s Comments

Funny, chaotic, experimental and fearless.