"Intense and densely layered, Involuntary Bliss is the latest intriguing story from award winning young writer Devon Code. Situated in modern-day Montréal during a weekend in late August, two young men come together in an attempt to restore their friendship. From the streets of Montréal's Plateau to the mountainous hillsides of Machu Picchu and beyond, this high-spirited picaresque investigates themes of mortality, idealism, and transgressive art from the perspective of young adults, in a novel comprised of incidents by turns comic, erotic, tender, and harrowing. In conceiving of this novel, Code took as influence such works as Roberto Bolaño's By Night in Chile and Horacio Castellanos Moya's Senselessness. With its dark humour and elements of psychological compulsion, Involuntary Bliss also follows in the tradition of Franz Kafka, while its eroticism, narrative momentum and intimations of violence align well with the novels of Haruki Murakami."--