"The Delighted States" follows a carousel of literary influence that shows how translation and emigration lead to a new and true history of the novel. This book is a provocation, a box of tricks, a bedside travel book; it is also a work of startling intelligence and originality from a young writer.

A parody of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, exposing social and political foibles.

A collection of erotic romances includes "The Awakening," in which Marguerite Abbott, a courtesan at the most elite brothel in Paris, surrenders her heart to a stranger from New Orleans who teaches her the true art of pleasure.

Presents the stories of seven survivors of Hurricane Katrina who tried to evacuate, protect their possessions, and save loved ones before, during, and after the flood.

Having slept with a prostitute in Egypt, a young French novelist named Gustave Flaubert at last abandons sentimentality and begins to write. He influences the obscure French writer Édouard Dujardin, who is read by James Joyce on the train to Trieste, where he will teach English to the Italian novelist Italo Svevo. Back in Paris, Joyce asks Svevo to deliver a suitcase containing notes for Ulysses, a novel that will be viscerated by the expat Gertrude Stein, whose first published story is based on one by Flaubert. This carousel of influence shows how translation and emigration lead to a new and true history of the novel. We devour novels in translation while believing that style does not translate. But the history of the novel is the history of style. The Delighted States attempts to solve this conundrum while mapping an imaginary country, a country of readers: the Delighted States. This book is a provocation, a box of tricks, a bedside travel book; it is also a work of startling intelligence and originality from one of our finest young writers.