Travelling Sprinkler

Nicholson Baker, geb. 1957 in Rochester/New York, studierte u.a. an der Eastman School of Music und lebt heute mit seiner Frau und seinen zwei Kindern in South Berwick, Maine. 1997 erhielt er den Madison Freedom of Information Award, im Jahr 2014 wurde ihm der Internationale Hermann-Hesse-Preis verliehen.

Paul Chowder is a poet, but he's fallen out of love with writing poems. He hasn't fallen out of love with his ex-girlfriend Roz, though. In fact he misses her desperately.

As he struggles to come to terms with Roz's new relationship with a doctor, Paul turns to his acoustic guitar for comfort and inspiration, and fills his days writing protest songs, going to Quaker meetings, struggling through Planet Fitness workouts, wondering if he could become a techno DJ, and experimenting with becoming a cigar smoker.

Written in Baker's beautifully unconventional prose, and scored with musical influences from Debussy to Tracy Chapman to Paul himself, Travelling Sprinkler is an enchanting, hilarious, and deeply necessary novel.

'I think the job of the novelist is to write about interesting things, including things that might not seem all that interesting at first glance, and to offer evidence that life is worth living' Nicholson Baker

A brilliantly clever, comic novel about love in middle-age by an American master.