This is a very short novel/novella. An afternoon read. It’s extremely readable. Full of weird feelings and anticipation. Before I read this, I’d heard this book described as a story about a guy who doesn’t or can’t leave his bathroom. And the way all those recommenders said it, made it seem like the book took place there, in the bathroom, like Baker’s Mezzanine takes place on an escalator. The narrator of The Bathroom does leave the bathroom pretty early in the book after having made a habit of spending a lot of time there. He’s as strange as can be, inept and confused, I think.

First published in French as La Salle de Bain, Editions de Minuit, 1985, and in English from Dalkey Archive, 2006