In a spiraling farce about upright academics, gilded captains of industry, ambitious climbers, and dotty philanthropists, Frayn tells a story of personal and professional disintegration as he delivers readers to the outer limits of hilarity.

In a spiraling farce about upright academics, gilded captains of industry, ambitious climbers, and dotty philanthropists, Frayn tells a story of personal and professional disintegration as he delivers readers to the outer limits of hilarity.

Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and a Washington Post Notable Book of the Year

On the private Greek island of Skios, the high-paying guests of a world-renowned foundation prepare for the annual keynote address, to be given this year by Dr. Norman Wilfred, an aging and ponderous authority on the scientific organization of science. He turns out to be surprisingly youthful and charming, and everyone is soon eating out of his hand. Meanwhile, in a remote villa at the other end of the island, the ravishing Georgie has agreed to spend a furtive horizontal weekend with a notorious schemer, who has characteristically failed to turn up. Trapped there with her instead is a pompous, balding individual called Dr. Norman Wilfred, who has lost his whereabouts, his luggage, and his temper--indeed, everything he possesses other than the text of a lecture on the scientific organization of science. In a spiraling farce about upright academics, ambitious climbers, and dotty philanthropists, Michael Frayn, the god of farce (Entertainment Weekly), tells a story of personal and professional disintegration, probing his eternal theme of how we know what we know even as he delivers us to the outer limits of hilarity.