This Scheme of Things

The literary gloves come off in this tale of inflated, middle-eastern nincompoops.

This Scheme of Things begins in a psychiatric facility and finishes in a toilet cubicle. It is nonetheless a novel with lofty ambitions, exploring through satire some of western society's more interesting blind spots and self-censoring shibboleths. That the psychiatric facility and the cubicle are both located in Israel is no mere coincidence.

The story follows the ever-passive protagonist Stephen Hope through a series of Levantine adventures or near-adventures, in a world where money talks and a society where talk can be dangerous. As western civilization spins its wheels ever deeper in a quagmire of media-driven reality and confessional politics, This Scheme of Things takes a light-hearted swipe at a society that needs to change gears.