About the Book
Throughout mathematician Philip Masyrk's peripatetic life, there has been only one constant: Irma Arcuri. Their ongoing love affair has endured his two marriages and her countless travels. But now Irma has vanished, leaving Philip her library of 351 books, including five written by Irma herself. Buried somewhere within her luxuriously rebound volumes of Cervantes and Turgenev, Borges and Fowles, lies the secret to her disappearance-and Philip soon realizes that he is trapped within their narratives as well. Who is Irma Arcuri? What is really hidden in the library? And most importantly, whose story is this?
What Readers Are Saying
Bajo has crafted an intellectual thriller for a literate audience. It’s engrossing stuff, there’s no question. Bajo uses words and equations to the point of poetry. —Los Angeles Times
Think of it as Eastern European beach reading: a sexy book that’s about everything, yet above all about the act (Act? Art!) of reading itself. —Minneapolis Star Tribune
It might be easier to explain what’s lacking in David Bajo’s mind-expanding novel The 351 Books of Irma Arcuri. This is an amazing, beautiful story of Philip Masryk’s quixotic search for the Siren of all Sirens. These characters live within a puzzle, that’s inside a maze, that’s inside a labyrinth all tied up in Möbius strips. It’s as if Stranger than Fiction were co-directed by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Gottlob Frege. Smart, mystical, sexy, and lyrical: I’m convinced that The 351 Books of Irma Arcuri will not leave the reader, ever. —George Singleton, author of Workshirts for Madmen and Novel
The 351 Books of Irma Arcuri is a dazzling combination of love and sex and, yes, mathematics, and David Bajo uses mirrors to make his magic. If you have ever opened a novel and found yourself “inside” the story, you must read this book. —Keith Donohue, author of The Stolen Child
David Bajo's first novel is a provocative and elegant meditation on love, literature and mathematics. —Karl Iagnemma, author of The Expeditions and On the Nature of Romantic Human Interaction