Cherokee

Originally published in 1983, Cherokee won the Prix Médicis and established Jean Echenoz as one of Europe's most brilliant young writers. As the reviewer for the Chicago Tribune noted, "Its erstwhile hero is George Chave, maybe a detective, maybe an underworld figure. With him the reader embarks on a breakneck but loving tour of Paris, punctuated by auto chases, mystery ladies, sleazy bars, and innumerable metro stops. Along the way, the detective-reader alternately follows the trail of a rare talking parrot, an eccentric runaway wife, an elusive missing heir, and a weird religious cult." The novel is "a wonderfully funny piece of controlled, chaotic madness," said the Irish Times.