Synopses & Reviews
There's a war going on between the earth and the sky, but that doesn't stop Parsifal, a humble fountain-pen repairman, from revisiting the forest where he was raised. On his journey, Parsifal--a wise fool if there ever was one--encounters several librarians, a therapist, numerous blind people, and Misty, a beautiful woman who may well be under the influence of recreational drugs. Head-spinning and hilarious, Parsifal is a book like no other about the entanglement of the past and present, as well as the limitations of the future.
Review
"Krusoes latest is a self-reflective coming-of-age story wrapped in a fable and sprinkled with wry observations
Parsifal becomes a piquant commentary on tensions between nostalgia and reality, the past and the present, and humanitys need for myths.”
Publishers Weekly
Review
"Parsifal's entire quest might have nothing to do with his cup and everything to do with the lost nuclear associated with it. This is pretty banal stuff, I know, but it's also pretty deep stuff, and Krusoe is sufficiently artful at scrambling his oppositions and his timeline that the experience of reading Parsifal is the opposite of banal."The Rumpus
"...dreamlike, at times even poetic, meditations on good, evil, blindness, and sight."
Daily Beast, Hot Reads
"The words of Paul Verlaine -- 'What is this sadness that creeps into my heart?' -- recur throughout the novel, and Krusoe replays them in jazz-like variations that accrue meaning and emotion until we come to see Parsifal as a tragic clown, a lonely fool without a heart, an emblem of the emptiness of a life lived, or a quest undertaken, without love."
Oregonian
"Krusoes latest is a self-reflective coming-of-age story wrapped in a fable and sprinkled with wry observations
Parsifal becomes a piquant commentary on tensions between nostalgia and reality, the past and the present, and humanitys need for myths.”Publishers Weekly
"Set against an absurd backdrop of planetary warfare, in which myriad objects (car parts, paperclips, appliances) tumble from the clouds, and the earth shoots ash and smoke skyward, Parsifals story arrives in snapshots and snippets, short clips and punch lines. Krusoes swift prose blends references to epic poetry with contemporary fiction techniques, a hybrid of lyrical refrain (à la Carole Masos Ava, 1993) and agile irony (dramatic, situational, cosmic) into a quirky, twenty-first-century take on themes of reclamation and identity." Booklist
Synopsis
Head-spinning and hilarious, Parsifal is a book like no other about the entanglement of the past and present, as well as the limitations of the future.
About the Author
Jim Krusoe is the author of the novels Parsifal, Toward You, Erased, Girl Factory, and Iceland; two collections of stories; and five books of poetry. His stories and poems have appeared in the Antioch Review, Bomb, the Chicago Review, the Denver Quarterly, the American Poetry Review, and other publications. He is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Lila Wallace Reader's Digest Fund.