Find Him!

Kraf (The Princess of 72nd Street), who died in 2013, depicts in this striking 1977 novel the eccentric life of a mysterious unnamed woman who confesses she has “no identity, no ability to think or speak.” In the beginning, she is taught to chew food by her oafish caregiver Oliver, whom she describes as her lover in ironic terms that reveal the limits of his affection (“There are some advantages to ignorance. Had I remembered other lovers I might have been dissatisfied”). He also regularly rapes her, calling her by the name of his long-since vanished wife, Edith. Early on, the narrator finds a cache of ominous letters Edith wrote to Oliver from a mental asylum (“I’ve gone for a walk and may not be here when you return”). Eventually, the letters, which appear throughout the novel, begin to suggest Edith received a prefrontal lobotomy and that the narrator is actually Edith (“When I come home I will not be able to do all the things I used to do”). The strangely affecting arc of the pair’s twisted relationship lays bare the narrator’s emotional needs and ultimate sense of betrayal. This entrancing novel more than withstands the test of time. Agent: Monika Woods, Triangle House. (Nov.)