Keeping Bedlam at Bay in the Prague Café tells the story of John
Shirting, a socially inept, quiet young American who has left his
country for mysterious reasons and, in a fast-changing capital of
Eastern Europe, resolves to recreate one aspect of society in his own,
crazily capitalist image. He makes it his mission to return to the
frothy fold of the Chicago-based chain of cafes that once employed him,
as a barista--Capo--by singlehandedly breaking into a new market and
making freshly post-communist Prague safe for free-market capitalism.
Full of smart writing, cynical humor, and eccentric characters, Keeping
Bedlam at Bay in the Prague Café is a brilliant satire. Poised to be an
underground classic, it asks: what does it mean to be sane in a
fast-changing world?
M. Henderson Ellis, the author of Petra K and the Blackhearts (New
Europe Books), is a graduate of Bennington College and a Chicago native
who currently lives in Budapest, Hungary.
"An ode to expatriate living, culture clashes, and the heady days of
early 1990s Europe, this novel is a manic, wild ride.... [D]arkly
comic ... immersive, nostalgic, and thoroughly enjoyable."
--Booklist
"With fresh and evocative language, Ellis delivers us into a frenetic
and history-haunted world. By turns strange and subtle, imaginative and
knowing--and also often very funny--this assured and original debut
novel is a must-read for anyone, like me, who ever daydreamed about
expat life in 1990s Eastern Europe but didn't have the nerve to go for
it." --Rosie Schaap, author of Drinking With Men, Drink columnist,
New York Times Magazine
"As the title suggests, disorder predominates in Ellis's debut novel set
in Prague during the dizzying days of the early 1990s. John Shirting is
a quirky and unbalanced former barista from Chicago with a pill habit
who winds up in the newly capitalist city hawking a plan to establish a
chain of mobster-themed coffee shops... . The picaresque absurdity will
be familiar to fans of Thomas Pynchon, along with the low-grade paranoia
and aggressively whimsical dialogue... . . Ellis vividly re-creates the
atmosphere of a city in the throes of transformation as well as the
American Quixotes who populate this new frontier." --Publishers
Weekly
