The Idiot's Assistant
Twelve-year-old Louie is a timid boy whose preoccupation with imagined fame masks his fear of social interactions and his loneliness. Gaillardia is the town jester whose abandonment as a child shapes a life of isolation which he valiantly portrays as self-styled independence. When a mysterious stranger presents Louie with a wondrous gift to help the boy overcome his anxiety of humiliation in the face of others, not even he could foresee the bizarre set of events that brings Louie and Gaillardia together in a strange land with no apparent way back home. Louie must endure the greatest humiliation as Gaillardia’s companion -- the idiot whose very life holds the key to deciphering the mystery of their predicament -- if he is to find his way home, or he could accept an offer of real celebrity but lose everything most dear.

The Idiot’s Assistant is a story about the universal quest to belong, told as a rumpus adventure through a colorful landscape populated by peculiar characters given to vanity and gastronomic excess; they eat a lot, especially foods made of meat.

Maghreb writes with deliciously colorful prose evocative of classic literature mixed with the wonderful weirdness and pageantry of circus arts. The feeling is that of a whimsically complicated machine that accomplishes nothing at all -- yet everything. Think Don Quixote in Alice's Wonderland.
"1111073175"
The Idiot's Assistant
Twelve-year-old Louie is a timid boy whose preoccupation with imagined fame masks his fear of social interactions and his loneliness. Gaillardia is the town jester whose abandonment as a child shapes a life of isolation which he valiantly portrays as self-styled independence. When a mysterious stranger presents Louie with a wondrous gift to help the boy overcome his anxiety of humiliation in the face of others, not even he could foresee the bizarre set of events that brings Louie and Gaillardia together in a strange land with no apparent way back home. Louie must endure the greatest humiliation as Gaillardia’s companion -- the idiot whose very life holds the key to deciphering the mystery of their predicament -- if he is to find his way home, or he could accept an offer of real celebrity but lose everything most dear.

The Idiot’s Assistant is a story about the universal quest to belong, told as a rumpus adventure through a colorful landscape populated by peculiar characters given to vanity and gastronomic excess; they eat a lot, especially foods made of meat.

Maghreb writes with deliciously colorful prose evocative of classic literature mixed with the wonderful weirdness and pageantry of circus arts. The feeling is that of a whimsically complicated machine that accomplishes nothing at all -- yet everything. Think Don Quixote in Alice's Wonderland.
6.99 In Stock
The Idiot's Assistant

The Idiot's Assistant

by F. C. Maghreb
The Idiot's Assistant

The Idiot's Assistant

by F. C. Maghreb

eBook

$6.99 

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Overview

Twelve-year-old Louie is a timid boy whose preoccupation with imagined fame masks his fear of social interactions and his loneliness. Gaillardia is the town jester whose abandonment as a child shapes a life of isolation which he valiantly portrays as self-styled independence. When a mysterious stranger presents Louie with a wondrous gift to help the boy overcome his anxiety of humiliation in the face of others, not even he could foresee the bizarre set of events that brings Louie and Gaillardia together in a strange land with no apparent way back home. Louie must endure the greatest humiliation as Gaillardia’s companion -- the idiot whose very life holds the key to deciphering the mystery of their predicament -- if he is to find his way home, or he could accept an offer of real celebrity but lose everything most dear.

The Idiot’s Assistant is a story about the universal quest to belong, told as a rumpus adventure through a colorful landscape populated by peculiar characters given to vanity and gastronomic excess; they eat a lot, especially foods made of meat.

Maghreb writes with deliciously colorful prose evocative of classic literature mixed with the wonderful weirdness and pageantry of circus arts. The feeling is that of a whimsically complicated machine that accomplishes nothing at all -- yet everything. Think Don Quixote in Alice's Wonderland.

Product Details

BN ID: 2940014725934
Publisher: Lovell House
Publication date: 06/28/2012
Series: The Idiot , #1
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 278
File size: 218 KB
Age Range: 9 - 12 Years

About the Author

F. C. Maghreb has written stories -- sometimes in comic book form -- since she could write words. A scholar of classic literature and a warped kind of humor she describes as "played out in pantomime by characters from a Botero painting and set to an operatic score", Maghreb's first novel for the young reader is an attempt to recapture the simple fun of reading a book that makes one giggle, yet is anything but simplistic in its content and meaning.

The storyline for The Idiot's Assistant developed entirely during a one-hour car ride and is based on Maghreb's sudden realization that much of her life has been shaped by an abject fear of social interactions.
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