La Moustache

A man shaves his mustache one evening, hoping his wife, Agnès, will notice and laugh. She does not react. When he mentions it, she denies he ever had a mustache, and so do his friends and colleagues. He begins to suspect a conspiracy, or his own madness, and in an attempt to escape he travels abroad, where everything becomes more uncertain. Emmanuel Carrère's first novel is a precise psychological thriller about self-image, perception and the fragility of identity, told in clear, flat language that makes the strangeness more disturbing.

If you enjoy Kafkaesque short novels with a single strange premise carried to its end, this makes a quick and unsettling read.

Deep, inward-looking, open-ended and thought-provoking; a moderate read.

Best for readers like The Literary Connoisseur. Which reader are you?