Patrick deWitt is a Canadian writer whose second novel, a picaresque and darkly comic western called The Sisters Brothers, was much praised and shortlisted for the Man Booker prize in 2011. For the follow-up, deWitt has produced a picaresque and darkly comic middle-European fairy tale called Undermajordomo Minor. Instead of brothers named Sisters, it features a lone anti-hero with a girl’s name: Lucy (Lucien) Minor. As is traditional in storybook narratives, Lucy leaves his village of birth to seek his fortune — well, not to seek his fortune so much as just because he hates his village and everyone in it. He accepts a position assisting the caretaker (i.e. majordomo) of the castle of the Baron von Aux. On his way there he meets sundry vagabonds and oddballs; once installed at the castle, he becomes embroiled in true love, intrigue and a sadistic orgy, described in gleefully lurid detail. By the end of his adventures young Lucy has cheated death, become a man and may even have learned something.
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