Before getting to the story, I'll start with the fact that Rawi Hage is brilliant, original (any riff on Kafka is coincidental, I think), imaginative and musical. There's a pace and thythm to his words and images that captivated me even when the narrative remained sprawling as opposed to forward-driving.

Narrated in first person by a nameless character who has immigrated to Montreal from Beirut at a time perhaps late 80s or early 90s (nobody uses a cell phone), the protagonist is an anti-hero. A B&E artist in his home country, he continues to practice that craft in Montreal, though typically selecting the homes of those he knows. He collects welfare, bums cigarettes, gets high, befriends and then steals from bourgeois acquaintences, resorts to threats and violence, and beds as many women as possible. Oh, and he often imagines himself as a cockroach.

The cockroach as metaphor for immigrant/outsider isn't quite cut-and-dry, however. There are strong indications it is also manifestation of a mental illness which may be consuming him. Perhaps traceable to memories and events concerning his sister in Beirut, or maybe organic, or a bit of both. But there are many scenes when the world is evocatively described from the ground up, so to speak, and it's not always clear if it's mere imagination since the narrator's details of his cockroach journey take on a highly granular and specific level of detail and vision. Confusing at times for me, but I liked it.

The story itself is initially the day-to-day travails of the narrator post-suicide attempt, as he meets with a court-appointed therapist and we learn some of his life story this way. With much of the rest of the story coalescing around his efforts to get high, have sex, feed himself and stay warm in winter, and generally deriding those around him as either bourgeoise or posers among the immigrant (mostly Iranian) circle with whom he's acquainted. He eventually makes a notable exception for Shohreh, an Iranian immigrant with whom he builds greater intimacy which may or may not be love.

It's only perhaps two-thirds to three-quarters through that a more linear narrative surfaces, as a powerful member of the Iranian regime pops up at the restaurant where our narrator works as busboy. From that point, the drama heightens and races towards a rather rapid climax. The speed with which the final scene plays out and story ends didn't bother me since I felt I could imagine the cockroach's next manouever (as I believe we're meant to do). And even though there's a almost npolemical quality to this aspect of the story, it seems warranted and I didn't find it too heavy-handed, especially from the perspective of the story's characters.

For me this was a rich story that combined in some ways the European surrealist or absurdist traditions of Kafka and Camus with Canadian immigrant/outsider tales from Richler or Ricci. Quite a feat and a terrific book.