For connoisseurs of imaginative fiction, the novels of Jonathan Carroll are a special treat that occupy a space all their own. His surreal fictions, which deftly mix the everyday with the extraordinary, have won him a devoted following. Now, in Glass Soup, Carroll continues to astound...

The realm of the dead is built from the dreams — and nightmares — of the living. Octopuses drive buses. God is a polar bear. And a crowded highway literally leads to hell.

Once before, Vincent Ettrich and his lover, Isabelle Neukor, crossed over from life to death and back again. Now Isabelle bears a very special child, who may someday restore the ever-changing mosaic that is reality. Unless the agents of Chaos can lure her back to the land of the dead — and trap her there forever.

Glass Soup is another exquisite and singular creation from the author January magazine described as "incapable of writing a bad book much less an uninteresting one."

"An ambitious retelling of the cosmic struggle between good and evil, with a little Judeo-Christian mythology and a smattering of popular culture mythos thrown in, make Carroll's latest a delicious dish — one that's lighter and better plotted than his White Apples (2002). A group of 30-something Americans living in Vienna (where Carroll himself resides), find themselves caught in the middle of a battle between God (a giant polar bear named Bob, or possibly a mosaic) and Chaos (most often John Flannery, a rapacious sex demon — when he's not just raw ectoplasm inhabiting a leather sofa). The McGuffin is Anjo, the unborn baby of Isabelle Neukor. In a reverse Orpheus, Isabelle has already crossed the border between life and death to retrieve the deceased Vincent Ettrich, Anjo's father. As the contest for Isabelle's child heats up, more and more characters — some good, some evil, but most indifferent — are drawn into the fray, while the world, both real and unreal, living and dead, constantly blends, shifts and changes dimension. In-jokes abound, as do barbs thrown at George W. Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger, rap music, Austrian traffic problems and even chocolate pudding. This is a marvelous comic feast, but logic, consistency and plausibility are not on the menu. Agent, Richard Parks." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"Carroll's tale alternates between lighthearted and menacing as it races headlong to its bittersweet and utterly unpredictable conclusion. A delightfully inventive novel that never loses the reader's interest, this is enthusiastically recommended." Library Journal

"Dazzling details and more twists than a bag of pretzels: disquieting, often absorbing, but, for skeptical readers, more questions than answers." Kirkus Reviews

"Once again you have the great good fortune to be able to read a new book by Jonathan Carroll and that's a lucky break, indeed, because Carroll is one of the best living writers of grownup fantasy." Gahan Wilson, Realms of Fantasy

"I found this novel less amusing than some of Carroll's other outings, and tear-shakingly moving. It is a remarkable return to form, and I would urge you to get your hands on a copy." Interzone

"Jonathan Carroll is a changer. He's one of the special ones, one of the few....He gives you his eyes to see with, and he gives you the world all fresh and honest and new." Neil Gaiman

"Jonathan Carroll is a master of sunlit surrealism — his beguiling, impossible novels are like Frank Capra films torn open to reveal the Philip K. Dick or Julio Cortázar mechanisms ticking away at their cores." Jonathan Lethem

"An extraordinary writer....Jonathan Carroll is a cult waiting to be born." Pat Conroy

Beginning two months after the end of White Apples, Glass Soup continues the story of Vincent and Isabelle, a 21st-century Orpheus and Eurydice — with a twist.

Jonathan Carroll's novel The Wooden Sea was named a New York Times Notable book of 2001. He is also the author of such acclaimed novels as White Apples, The Land of Laughs, and The Marriage of Sticks. He lives in Vienna.