The Beautiful Bureaucrat

Helen Phillips


Rated: 3.22 of 5 stars
3.22 · 18 ratings · 192 pages · Published: 11 Aug 2015

The Beautiful Bureaucrat by Helen Phillips

'A satisfying parable of love and life, death and birth... reads like a thriller' Joshua Ferris

'There is a grim power to this novel... A fascinating and gruelling portrait of extreme capitalism and the degradation of ordinary lives' Guardian


If the job market hadn't been so bleak during that long, humid summer, Josephine might have been discouraged from taking the administrative position in a windowless building in a remote part of town. As the days inch by, she becomes increasingly anxious - the drone of keyboards echoes eerily down the long halls, her boss has terrible breath, and there are cockroaches in the bath of her sub-let. When one evening her husband Joseph disappears and then returns offering no explanation as to his whereabouts, her creeping unease soon turns to dread...

Part modern fairytale, part existentialist thriller, this is a breathtaking joyride of a novel that asks the biggest questions about marriage and fidelity, birth and death.

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