In the archives of Ontario's London Asylum, psychiatrist Harry Karlinsky comes across a familiar surname in the register. Could Thomas Darwin, involuntarily admitted to the Asylum as a "danger to others," be a relative of the great Charles Darwin? And what might have brought him to this place, where he died alone, a world away from home? In this factitious biography, the author gives the reader a Nabokovian tale of Darwinian theory gone wrong. Although decisively a work of fiction, The Evolution of Inanimate Objects invites sustained uncertainty as to whether Thomas is a character of pure invention or simply a heretofore little known figure.