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Franz Kafka meets Yorgos Lanthimos in this provocative new novel from one of America's most brilliant and distinctive writers.
In a speculative future, Abel, a menial worker, is called to serve in a secretive and fabled jury system. At the heart of this system is the repeat room, where a single juror, selected from hundreds of candidates, is able to inhabit the defendant's lived experience, to see as if through their eyes.
The case to which Abel is assigned is revealed in the novel's shocking second act. We receive a record of a boy's broken and constrained life, a tale that reveals an illicit and passionate psycho-sexual relationship, its end as tragic as the circumstances of its conception.
Artful in its suspense, and sharp in its evocation of a byzantine and cruel bureaucracy, The Repeat Room is an exciting and pointed critique of the nature of knowledge and judgment, and a vivid framing of Ball's absurd and nihilistic philosophy of love.
"Blistering...Ball's tragic character study of the accused stands in stark relief to the chilling depiction of the court system and its low estimation of human life...This strikes a chord." —Publishers Weekly
"[Ball's] style and the unsettling atmosphere deliver a uniquely uncomfortable experience...A provocative vision of a world desperately in search of basic human compassion." —Kirkus Reviews
"The fictional realms Ball constructs are unnerving in their depictions of social and physical austerity, facades behind which emotions roil...Ball's vision is chilling, his writing flawless in this stark, grueling tale." —Booklist
"A Kafkaesque descent into a legal system...The contrast between the first and second halves of Ball's mesmerizing novel is stark and effective...A fast-paced tilt-a-whirl of a social commentary absurdist novel, with insights that will leave readers feeling complicit." —Shelf Awareness
"Ball is one of our most interesting working writers—his novels are always, it seems, trying to do a little bit more than just tell a story." —Literary Hub
"This novel forces tough moral questions on readers, and will make you wonder what it means to be a good person—and, ultimately, if it even matters." —The Millions
"I recently found myself hoping that one day Yorgos Lanthimos will find his next directorial project in the work of Jesse Ball—two visionaries who combine uncompromising bleakness and the sharpest of dark wit to create absurd depictions of human desire. Perhaps the best place to start would be with The Repeat Room, a novel set in a speculative future where a single juror is selected to inhabit the defendant's lived experience through their own eyes." —Chicago Review of Books
"It was Ball's unique prose, cunning craft, and distinct skill for capturing the human psyche that led me to finish the book in two gluttonous sittings...Ball never once falters in his unabashed portrayal of the human mind—the good, the bad, and the ugly. Throughout the novel, profound depictions of the human condition left me feeling so utterly seen that it was both marvelous and frightening...The Repeat Room is a book that has been stuck in my mind for weeks, and it shows no signs of leaving anytime soon. The novel is a must-read for anyone interested in considerations of judgment, philosophy, justice, and the self. And shouldn't that be all of us?" —The Sewanee Review
"Thought-provoking and critical of the judicial system and the nature of judgment, Ball is a deft stylist and exquisite thinker." Our Culture Mag
This information about The Repeat Room was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Joe Lieske
Jesse Ball was born in New York in 1978. The author of fourteen books, most recently, the novel How To Set a Fire and Why. His works have been published to acclaim in many parts of the world and translated into more than a dozen languages. He is on the faculty at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, won the 2008 Plimpton Prize, was longlisted for the National Book Award, and has been a fellow of the NEA, Creative Capital, and Guggenheim Foundation.
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Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.
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