Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife
Sign in to keep track of books you’ve read and want to read.
Firmin is a rat born in a book (a shredded copy of Finneggans Wake), who finds the books he consumes also consume his soul. He becomes a vagabond and philosopher, struggling with mortality and meaning.
Read more
In the basement of a Boston bookstore, Firmin is born in a shredded copy Finnegans Wake, nurtured on a diet of Zane Grey, Lady Chatterley's Lover, and Jane Eyre (which tastes a lot like lettuce). While his twelve siblings gnaw these books obliviously, for Firmin the words, thoughts, deeds, and hopes—all the literature he consumes—soon consume him. Emboldened by reading, intoxicated by curiosity, foraging for food, Firmin ventures out of his bookstore sanctuary, carrying with him all the yearnings and failings of humanity itself. It's a lot to ask of a rat—especially when his home is on the verge of annihilation.
A novel that is by turns hilarious, tragic, and hopeful, Firmin is a masterpiece of literary imagination. For here, a tender soul, a vagabond and philosopher, struggles with mortality and meaning—in a tale for anyone who has ever feasted on a book...and then had to turn the final page.
First published by Coffee House Press in 2006. Republished by Delta, a division of Random House, in 2009.
Liked Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife? Here’s where I’d start.
These suit anyone who liked Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.
