Extinction

LRB BOOKSHOP'S AUTHOR OF THE MONTH ONE OF THE GUARDIAN'S BEST BOOKS OF 2019 WITH A NEW AFTERWORD BY GEOFF DYER 'If you haven't read Bernhard, you will not know of the most radical advance in fiction since Joyce … My advice: dive in.' Lucy Ellmann

'I absolutely love Bernhard: he is one of the darkest and funniest writers … A must read for everybody.' Karl Ove Knausgaard

Franz-Josef Murau is the intellectual black sheep of a powerful Austrian land-owning family. He now lives in Rome in self-imposed exile, surrounded by a coterie of artistic and intellectual friends. On returning from his sister's wedding on the family estate of Wolfsegg, having resolved never to go home again, Murau receives a telegram informing him of the death of his parents and brother in a car crash. Not only must he now go back, he must do so as the master of Wolfsegg: and he must decide its fate.

The summit of Thomas Bernhard's artistic genius – mesmerising, addictive, explosively tragicomic –

Extinction is a landmark of post-war literature, newly illuminated by

Geoff Dyer's afterword.