THE MAN WHO GOT STUCK WITH A SCOWL

Cutting across borders of history and genre, Uri Katz's THE MAN WHO GOT STUCK WITH A SCOWL is a novel about the search for a lost novella by the elusive Pavel Klemczek, a legendary Czech modernist said to have influenced Franz Kafka.

The protagonist Uri Katz follows Klemczek's trail past the edge of heartbreak and madness, where contemporary national narratives and technological malaise are embodied in a scowl that won't go away.

Born and raised in Israel, Uri is introduced to Klemczek by his grandmother Zipporah and by his lover Julia, both of whom grew up in Czech towns hearing Klemczek's stories. With Zipporah's death and Julia's disappearance, Uri's search for the lost novella becomes a thrilling dive into a profoundly personal mystery. Uri clings to the elusive novella, his last connection to the women he's lost. His obsession sends him zigzagging across Eastern Europe, the Levant, and the internet.

The traces he discovers of the novella become pieces in a maddening puzzle that insists on incompletion. With each new find, all perspectives multiply until all perspective is lost. Uri's desire for a satisfying unity of life and literature fractures into a sprawling, wildly inventive and often hilarious romp from past to future which, true to no form, is as original as it is unexpected.

In interludes throughout the novel, Katz's self-deprecating voice careens between high enthusiasm and crushing self-doubt. The story of the scowl unfolds and unravels in a scatter of styles: from literary fiction to science fiction, folklore to propaganda, romance to bedtime story, epic to email thread. Darkly humorous and stylistically audacious, this literary mystery unearths human connections buried in the uncanny isolation of global society.

URI ITZHAK KATZ is an Israeli writer, musician, and filmmaker. He has written and directed popular comedic television shows and films. His 2019 novel, THE MAN WHO GOT STUCK WITH A SCOWL, won the Minister of Culture's Award for Debut Books and a translation grant from the Ministry of Culture. He lives in Jaffa.

Jessica Cohen, co-winner with David Grossman of the Man Booker International Prize and a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow, has produced a gorgeous translation that does justice to Katz's unique form. If only for the joy of the prose, THE MAN WHO GOT STUCK WITH A SCOWL is a stellar reading experience. But the two together - the story and the style of it - make for a singular, exhilarating book, which we are proud to represent.