The Manuscripts

the manuscripts

After insinuating himself into the company of a famous philosopher, an art student finds himself with an unexpected job. Aided by a driver with obscure motives, the student must chaperone the philosopher around the countryside to retrieve manuscripts hidden during the recent war. These manuscripts, however, reveal more than expected. A road-trip novel about phenomenology and fascism, The Manuscripts careens headlong across terrain both comically and morally fraught.

A delightful existential romp (if there is such a thing), Allardice’s The Manuscripts finally brings Heidegger and Marx together, although here Heidegger is a sex-starved sneak and it’s Groucho, not Karl. Erudite, witty and fun, Allardice has created, with a dash of Kafka and a sprinkling of Bernhard, a delicious Mitteleuropean duck soup, full of exquisite prose and tasty complications.
— Jeffrey DeShell, author of Arthouse

A Kafkaesque quest in a gore-smeared sedan through a dark night of European intellectual history, with pitstops, pratfalls, a poisoning or two, a naked philosopher perched on a madam’s roof,and a preternaturally charming jellicle cat. Outfitted with wickedly clever prose, a pointed satire (and critique) of Heideggerean philosophy, and a comic yet poignant intellectual coming-of-age tale,The Manuscripts, like the car of "the Driver," is made for the transportation of pleasure.
— Elisabeth Sheffield, author of Fort Da: A Report

The Manuscripts is a free-wheeling, side-splitting metaphysical stew. Kevin Allardice has cooked up a screwball comedy of the highest order, breathing new life into the road-trip novel.
— Ravi Mangla, author of The Observant