"What would you say if I shaved off my mustache?" asks The Mustache's hero of his wife. Once removed, his wife and friends not only fail to recognize him, but deny the existence of the former mustache altogether. A metaphysical nightmare of the grandest kind, The Mustache is a stunning blend of absurdist comedy and philosophical speculation.

In Class Trip, young Nicholas's vivid imagination gets the best of him when a boy disappears from a school excursion. What the youthful detective finds is even more terrifying than his wildest fantasties.

Brought together in one volume, the piercing early novels of Emmanuel Carrère constitute some of the most devastating psychological portraits in contemporary fiction.