{"product_id":"the-employee-9781962728058","title":"The Employee","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eSternberg's rule-breaking, genre-defying novel upends the humdrum workday world \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA nameless employee stands outside the door to an office, hesitating to enter because he is five minutes late. This banal opening then launches into a frenetic narrative that switches genres, modes and universes with abandon. From an account of his feral childhood with a nymphomaniacal mother, to his early development of a third arm and a second head, the employee unspools his subsequent life as department-store wrapper, ladder-descending bureaucrat, traveling salesman, murder suspect and other occupations. Years return and reverse through a series of inflicted hellscapes as a tension builds between an untrammeled imagination willing to commit any crime and the inescapable rigidity of the mind.\u003cbr\u003eFirst published in French by Les Éditions de Minuit in 1958, \u003ci\u003eThe Employee\u003c\/i\u003e was awarded the Grand Prix de l'Humour Noir in 1961. This first English-language translation presents an entropic exercise of the imagination that will leave readers bewildered and breathless.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eJacques Sternberg\u003c\/b\u003e (1923-2006) was a literary maverick, who wrote over 50 books that roamed freely through genre and influence without ever adhering to anything that might threaten constraint. He was briefly a member of the Panic Movement, founded by Fernando Arrabal, Alejandro Jodorowsky and Roland Topor.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Wakefield Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51552831471890,"sku":"9781962728058","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_df444df1-42ac-46cb-9899-c7629fb06273.jpg?v=1754906883","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-employee-9781962728058","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}