As you learn from its subtitle, this is the autobiography - and, as you will soon realize, also the diary - of the fictional Rabo Karabekian. In his younger years, Karabekian was an illustrator with close ties to some of the painters of the abstract expressionism movement, including Jackson Pollock and especially (the also fictional) Terry Kitchen. He was a soldier in WWII, in which he lost one of is eyes to a bomb. He had one big love and was married twice (in neither case to the before-mentioned big love).

But all this was very long ago. By the start of the book Karabekian is living in a big house and from the fortune his second wife left him after the passed away. The impetus to write the autobiography comes from a famous writer, who had just lost her husband and moves into the house immediately after Karabekian had met her on his beach.

The book is written in the belief that his entire life was a failure. He was never really loved, became estranged from his two children (in fact, he doesn't seem to know them at all), his painter-friends were mostly just suppliants and drinking buddies, and, most importantly, he didn't make really it as an artist. The only thing in which he had some sort of success was as an art collector, but this came about mostly by accident and he is hesitant to count this among his achievements.

So the book is written in this aloof and ironic style in which Karabekian portrays himself somewhat as a caricature that stumbles from one tragedy and ridicule to the next. This is certainly funny to read - not unlike Italo Calvino, Milan Kundera, Thomas Bernhard, or Umberto Eco -, but there is this subtle (or not so subtle) sadness and melancholy in his voice that makes this book quite beautiful at times. In fact, the way it comes together in the end almost brought tears to my eyes. Really, what a wonderful ending.

Rating: 3.5/5