A man awakens with no memory in a strange, rundown institution. Struggling to make sense of his surroundings, he begins to piece together the story of his life from clues someone has left for him – drawings that line the walls of his room and fragments of letters hidden in the lining of his jacket. When he leaves his room to venture into the surrounding Compound, he encounters a group of oddly familiar people that urge him to undertake a desperate mission.

In dreamlike prose, award-winning novelist Rabindranath Maharaj, weaves a story of fragments in which our narrator comes to believe he was once a comic book writer who warned against humanity’s reliance on artificial intelligence. Meanwhile, his caretakers try to convince him he’s insane. Soon he uncovers more clues that suggest memory is stored outside the body, and he learns of Adjacentland, a primitive land of outsiders where human imagination still survives. Together with a motley group of inmates from the Compound, he decides he must make his way there. In this brilliant, unsettling novel, Maharaj asks us, “What happens to the soul when all minds are tied together?”

Rabindranath Maharaj is the award-winning author of three short story collections and five novels, including The Amazing Absorbing Boy, which won the 2010 Trillium Book Award and the 2011 Toronto Book Award, and was voted a CBC Canada Reads Top 10 for Ontario.

In 2012, Maharaj received a Lifetime Literary Award, administered by the National Library and Information System Authority as part of the commemoration of Trinidad’s fiftieth independence anniversary. In 2013, he was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, which honours significant contributions and achievements by Canadians.

Rabindranath Maharaj's profile page

"In this scary futuristic landscape where imagination has been rendered obsolete by artificial intelligence, readers will enjoy the challenging questions Maharaj poses about the soul and human mind."

This Magazine

"[Rabindranath Maharaj] is a talented and at times poetic writer whose referential style is rooted in psychological realism but gleefully borrows from a range of forms. […] His gift for creating sharp, poignant portraits is a useful counterpoint to the emotional pall that hangs over the characters."

Quill & Quire

"Some may find this a frustrating read because parts of the story just don't make sense, but then – without giving too much away – that becomes the point. Creativity may sometimes be hard to discern from madness, but it is our imagination, along with our memories and stories, that liberates us from an automaton's existence."

Globe and Mail

"If you like a challenge, a head-scratcher, something to boggle your mind then I highly recommend giving this book a try.... One thing is for sure, Rabindranath Maharaj has one heck of an imagination. And I never had any idea of what was going to happen next. If nothing else, this book is worth reading just to admire it."

Consumed by Ink

"Maharaj’s masterful control of narration relays an awareness of the labored language and prevents a collapse into tropes associated with its formality; the protagonist is “aware that this formal account might be as stilted and whinging to you as it is to me,” but the offhand intimacy of tone invites the reader to follow along, despite the glaring unreliability of the narrator. This is someone who is not only unsure of who to trust (including himself), but who also hallucinates and has imaginary friends – some of which are characters who bubble into an imaginative story within a story, then pop into a world that is entirely different from that of the previous chapter, or page."

Hamilton Review of Books