Publisher's Synopsis
In this hilarious first novel, Malcolm, our protagonist, has a lot of problems: his ex-girlfriend, Lena, won't give him back his watch; the small art movie theatre he runs isn't doing well; it's hot and sticky and his apartment isn't air-conditioned; he can't sleep because he thinks he's losing a minute of sleep each night and thinking about it is helping to keep him awake -- and what's more, a host of yellowjackets is living in his wall. As if all this wasn't enough, Lena is about to marry a successful cardiologist. Couldn't she at least give him his watch back? While he devises several schemes to retrieve his timepiece, Malcolm becomes involved with other women. There's Anne, the crisis hotline volunteer who persists in regarding him as someone who needs help rather than someone to date; and Darlene, who sings post-punk dirges and ballads with a group called the Circadian Rhythm Section. She's not exactly Malcolm's type, but she's a great kisser and stays up late, a quality which, in his present insomniac condition, he finds rather appealing. Still trying to woo Anne, he plans to launch an ambitious film festival at his Arcadia Filmhaus to impress her, making Wild Strawberries the centrepiece of the event, which will also feature a guest speaker -- a Swedish actor who claims to have worked with Ingmar Bergman in the '50s. Meanwhile, as Malcolm schemes to get his watch back, he works out a bizarre plot in which he finds himself in attendance at Lena's wedding. In the ensuing disaster -- both with the film festival and the watch project -- he has a final showdown with the yellowjackets in his wall and tries to decide at last What It's All About.
