Wolf at the Table

Reviews

"Rapp's novel is surprisingly high-spirited, comic without diminishing the emotional depth of his motley crew. That''s largely thanks to Rapp's gift for figurative language."—Washington Post "Rapp is such a skillful and evocative writer he can make magic out of the ordinary stuff of daily life... Know Your Beholder has a surprisingly satisfying finish on multiple levels... It's nothing less than masterful."—Cleveland Plain Dealer "Know Your Beholder is funny and sad, smart and moving, dark and hopeful. Adam Rapp writes with a lyrical acumen and wit that are not just impressive, but immensely engaging."—Jonathan Tropper, New York Times bestselling author of This Is Where I Leave You and One Last Thing Before I Go "Know Your Beholder is a message from the heart and from the beard, a message from the new weird America to every guy who's ever spent too much time in his bathrobe and every women who's ever considered what that guy would look like if he actually got himself together and shaved. Adam Rapp knows about laughing to keep from crying. He's a melancholy Lenny Bruce of the sentence and his imagination is never less than intense."—Hari Kunzru, author of the national bestseller The Impressionist “Wolf at the Table is a masterful novel—strange and affecting, and immersive reading. Adam Rapp peers into the dark heart of America with shrewd and eerie grace, the likes of which I have not encountered since Kosiński.”—Richard Ford, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Independence Day and Canada Praise for Know Your Beholder "More often than any book I can easily recall, Rapp's novel had me laughing like a fool, embarrassing myself each time I unthinkingly brought it out in public. Perhaps more surprisingly, that humor felt entirely natural—born organically from the idiosyncrasies of the characters themselves rather than foisted on them... Rapp mostly dredges comedy from Francis' peculiar ways of seeing the world and from the mundanely weird people who populate it."—NPR Expand reviews