The Repeat Room

Franz Kafka meets Yorgos Lanthimos in this provocative novel from one of America s most brilliant and distinctive writers 'a dreamlike exploration of human nature, seen through a speculative lens' (The New York Times Book Review)

In a speculative future, Abel, a menial worker, is called to serve in a secretive and fabled jury system. At the heart of this system is the repeat room, where a single juror, selected from hundreds of candidates, is able to inhabit the defendant s lived experience, to see as if through their eyes.

The case to which Abel is assigned is revealed in the novel s shocking second act. We receive a record of a boy's broken and constrained life, a tale that reveals an illicit and passionate psycho-sexual relationship, its end as tragic as the circumstances of its conception.

Artful in its suspense, and sharp in its evocation of a byzantine and cruel bureaucracy, The Repeat Room is an exciting and pointed critique of the nature of knowledge and judgment, and a vivid framing of Ball's absurd and nihilistic philosophy of love.