A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
A New York Public Library Best Book of 2022
A May Indie Next Pick
A Publishers Weekly 2022 Summer Read
A Literary Hub Favorite Book of 2022
“What is it about art that can move us to extremes? This absurdist take on very serious people hazards a guess.”
—The New York Times
“A meditation on art that meticulously builds a fictional painter's world and critical legacy, only to playfully yet ruthlessly tear it all down.”
—New York Public Library
“[A] sparkling comic novel. . . . Schmidt is one of Haber’s keenest inventions.”
—Jackson Arn, The New York Times
“Taut as a drum, [Saint Sebastian's Abysss] calls to mind the early novellas of Roberto Bolaño and reads, at times, like an outtake from William Gaddis’s The Recognitions.”
—Andrew Ervin, The Brooklyn Rail
“Haber relishes opportunities to tip sacred cows. . . . His critics feel so richly realized that one could be excused for Googling ‘Saint Sebastian’s Abyss’ to glimpse at a canvas that only exists in the book.”
—Andrew Dansby, Houston Chronicle
“In sinuous, recursive sentences infused with equal parts reverence and venom, Haber constructs a darkly parodic portrait of aesthetic devotion and intellectual friendship, in which the redemptive practice of collaborative interpretation becomes a cage that two egos relentlessly rattle.”
—Nathan Goldman, Jewish Currents
"A delightful and dizzying excursion into the relationship between art and criticism, and all the ways that we often deceive ourselves about the things and people we love.”
—David L. Ulin, Alta Journal
“A darkly funny novel about the wages of small-stakes intellectual combat.”
—Kirkus
“Saint Sebastian’s Abyss feels exactly like the description of the painting—deceitfully small in scale, containing a cosmic abyss at its center.”
—Hernan Diaz
“A brilliantly sustained performance: clever, droll and entrancing.”
—Chloe Aridjis
“In Saint Sebastian’s Abyss, we are swept away by the hilarious and misguided preoccupations of two compulsive pedants, a comedy duo, whose misadventures are as irresistible as they are outrageous.”
—Rikki Ducornet
“An absolute delight, and Haber’s love of writing comes through on every page.”
—Idra Novey
“A fantastic tale of the glories and tribulations of chasing an ecstatic relationship to art.”
—Matt Bell
“Funny, dark, strange, gothic, and beautiful—an extraordinary journey through three broken lives.”
—Edward Carey
“Mark Haber flays art of its pieties and pretensions, and when the cutting’s done, he has us look to see if anything’s left.”
—Adam Ehrlich Sachs
