num_pages: 135
description: THE MEZZANINE is the remarkable portrait of one young man's day at the office—actually, his lunch hour and, more exactly, his escalator ride back to his office on the mezzanine level, after purchasing shoelaces.Nicholson Baker's novel is fiction of an astonishing new and original variety. The seemingly small and inconsequential events of the narrator's life—breaking both shoelaces within a day of each other—assume the narrative weight of major discoveries, significant events in a straight-faced comedy of the quotidian. Pushing at the boundaries of supposedly average thoughts—why the spout on the milk carton? is the hot air in the men's room really more sanitary?—the tale uncovers the strange and wonderful parameters of the everyday. Complete with footnotes, lists, and charts, The Mezzanine marks Nicholson Baker's inspired debut as a novelist.
language: English
title: The Mezzanine
titlecomplete: The Mezzanine
characters: Howie
genres: Fiction, American, Humor, Literature, Classics, Novels, Contemporary, 20th Century, Novella, Literary Fiction
ratings_count: 8538
publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson