Doubting Thomas

New York: Rinehart & Company, Inc.. Very Good in Very Good dj. (c.1956). First Edition. Hardcover. [shelfwear and bumping to bottom corners, age-toning to edges of text block (typical of Rinehart books in this period), overall a clean and solidly bound book; jacket moderately edgeworn, light rubbing/soiling, small pull-tear in rear panel]. Novel -- sorry, "magical tale" -- about "a man in an unnamed city, holding down an unrewarding job in a wonderfully bureaucratic organization called simply The Agency, returning each evening to his dissatisfied and unsatisfying wife." His miserable existence is leavened only once a year, "at Holiday time, [when] he assumes his secret identity and becomes the most beloved man in the city" -- a clown. (That capital-H "Holiday," it turns out, is a bit of a clue, for in some circles -- although in no way pitched as such on the book jacket itself -- this is considered a science fiction novel, set (in the words of one source) in "a computer-ruled Dystopia," in which the protagonist's annual clowning "during the State Holiday" serves as a means for the author to explore "the metaphysical pathos of clowning in a world that disallows any element of Revel." All of which makes it sound a bit "1984"-ish, although I'm not quite sure it lives up the claim of the jacket blurb, namely that you should like this book "if you admire Franz Kafka and adore Cocteau." I suspect there's a reason that "Brebneresque" has not entered our lexicon.) .