Extinction

LRB BOOKSHOP''S AUTHOR OF THE MONTH
ONE OF THE GUARDIAN''S BEST BOOKS OF 2019
WITH A NEW AFTERWORD BY GEOFF DYER

''If you haven't read Bernhard, you will not know of the most radical advance in fiction since Joyce ... My advice: dive in.'' Lucy Ellmann

''I absolutely love Bernhard: he is one of the darkest and funniest writers ... A must read for everybody.'' Karl Ove Knausgaard

Franz-Josef Murau is the intellectual black sheep of a powerful Austrian land-owning family. He now lives in Rome in self-imposed exile, surrounded by a coterie of artistic and intellectual friends. On returning from his sister''s wedding on the family estate of Wolfsegg, having resolved never to go home again, Murau receives a telegram informing him of the death of his parents and brother in a car crash. Not only must he now go back, he must do so as the master of Wolfsegg: and he must decide its fate.

The summit of Thomas Bernhard''s artistic genius - mesmerising, addictive, explosively tragicomic - Extinction is a landmark of post-war literature, newly illuminated by Geoff Dyer''s afterword.