Patrick deWitt is the author of The Sisters Brothers, which won the Governor General's Award and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Walter Scott Prize, and was adapted for a film starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Joaquin Phoenix and Riz Ahmed.. He also is the author of Ablutions, which was a New York Times Editor's Choice, Undermajordomo Minor, and French Exit, which was adapted for a film starring Michelle Pfeiffer and shortlisted for the Giller Prize. Born in British Columbia, Canada, deWitt now resides in Portland, Oregon.

**AN INTERNATIONAL No. 1 BESTSELLER****Selected as a Washington Post Book of the Summer**'I absolutely adored it' NINA STIBBEFrom bestselling and award-winning author Patrick deWitt comes a novel about an ordinary man who thought life's surprises were behind him - until a chance encounter changed everythingBob Comet is a retired librarian passing his solitary days surrounded by books in a mint-colored house in Portland, Oregon. One morning on his daily walk he encounters a confused elderly woman lost in a market and returns her to the senior centre that is her home. Hoping to fill the void he's known since retiring, Bob begins volunteering at the center. Here, as a community of strange peers gathers around Bob, and following a brush with a painful complication from his past, the events of his life and the details of his character are revealed.Behind Bob Comet's straight man facade is the story of an unhappy child's runaway adventure during the last days of the Second World War, of true love won and stolen away, of the purpose and pride found in the librarian's vocation, and the pleasures of a life lived to the side of the masses.