Trouble in the Swaths

Synopsis

First published posthumously in 1966, Trouble in the Swaths was written for a small audience of family and friends during the Nazi Occupation of Paris, but it presented little evidence of those dark years. It is a flippant, at times outrageous parody of genre fiction laced through with bursts of Sadean violence, absurdist slapstick, and excessive wordplay in which Vian makes his fictionalized debut under such anagrammed monikers as the Baron Visi and the detective Brisavion.