The Annotated Nose

A most unlikely life. "Marc Estrin" discovers that another writer's novel -- The Nose -- not only has spawned a bizarre cult among the nation's youth, but is based on the extraordinary life of a real person--an outcast named Alexei Pigov. "Estrin" searches Alexei out and asks him to provide annotations to The Nose. Alexei says that--although the events of the novel might, for the most part, be real--the purported reasons for them are all damnable lies. On the left-hand page of The Annotated Nose we read The Nose itself, and take in its beautifully unsettling illustrations. On the right-hand page we follow Alexei's complaints -- always surprising and often far-reaching. The layers in Estrin's remarkable comic book are as multiple, eclectic, and outrageous as the sequence of masks Alexei wears to hide his face from the world over the caroming trajectory of his most unlikely life. The Annotated Nose is at once Marc Estrin's most playful and his most ambitious work to date. A signed and numbered limited edition of 75 copies is also available.