These two novellas demonstrate why Alain Robbe-Grillet, the leading
practitioner and theorist of the noveau roman, is one of the most
discussed and controversial writers of the post-war era. In La Maison de
Rendez-vous, the master of the "new novel" creates a world of crime,
intrigue, and passion dominated by Lady Ava's mysterious Blue Villa. Set
in Hong Kong, the novella unfolds over the course of one evening, but
the events of that night recur repeatedly, from the perspectives of
different characters. Robbe-Grillet creates an unsettling work that
challenges ideas about subjectivity and objectivity, fiction and fact,
and the entire process of storytelling. A haunting, disorienting, and
brilliantly constructed novel, Djinn is the story of a young man who
joins a clandestine organization under the command of an alluring,
androgynous American girl named Djinn. His search for the meaning of his
mission and for possible clues to the identity of the mysterious Djinn,
becomes a quest for his own identity in an ever-shifting time-space
continuum.