Synopses & Reviews
"Unbearably hilarious." —Los Angeles Times
After his editor's son accidentally drowns the sole copy of his latest manuscript in the bathtub, Mark Dunn (a character in his own novel) makes the best of a bad situation. He will tell the story of three-legged circus performer-cum-deodorant magnate and humanitarian Jonathan Blashette through the only part of the text that survives: the footnotes. The result is a riotous and irreverent romp through recent history that finds in the margins of a fictitious life a surprisingly revealing angle on who and what we consider newsworthy, and why.
“As fun and non-nutritious as picking the most buttery kernels of popcorn out of the bowl.” —TIME OUT NEW YORK
“If youre looking for a book with an original, offbeat résumé, a book that will entertain and amuse, Ibid will do the job!” —THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS
Mark Dunn, the author of Ella Minnow Pea and Welcome to Higby. Originally from Memphis, he now lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Review
"Dunn's tale is a sort of anti-E.L. Doctorow one: historical fiction of a sort...but refreshingly non-epic, reveling in odd comic details...and non sequiturs of the David Foster Wallace school. Humorous, quick like the wind..." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Reading [Ibid] is rather like being served a dinner consisting entirely of turkey necks: you're starving for the whole bird....The book reads as if Dunn had a brilliant time writing it, but readers may find the going tougher." Publishers Weekly
Review
"[Dunn] breathes joyful, ridiculous life into the fictitious Jonathan Blashette....Even though it seems unlikely that a story told in footnotes would flow smoothly, this one does. Highly recommended." Library Journal
Synopsis
Only Mark Dunn, author of the acclaimed Ella Minnow Pea, would attempt to write a novel entirely in footnotes and succeed so triumphantly. Ibid is the off-the-wall fictional biography of Jonathan Blashette, a three-legged circus performer and deodorant entrepreneur. Dunn, a character in his own novel, is Blashette's esteemed biographer. But when Dunn's editor destroys the manuscript in an unfortunate bathtub accident, all that remains are the footnotes, which they arrange to publish in a consummate portrait of Blashette's strangely hilarious life story, one that offers some infinitely interesting morsels of American cultural history. Of course, as endnotes go, these are the tidbits, the marginalia: snippets of commentary, correspondence, court transcripts, song lyrics, and even a recipe for Boston baked beans. But in the topsy-turvy world of Ibid, the footnotes tell the truest story of all.
About the Author
Mark Dunn is the author of
Ella Minnow Pea and
Welcome to Higby. Originally from Memphis, he now makes his home in Albuquerque, New Mexico.