Marek van der Jagt, the author of this darkly comic novel, is not bald. For that matter, he isn't Marek van der Jagt, either. The burdensome moniker is the pseudonym of Dutch author Arnon Grunberg, who, far from being hairless, is a disturbingly dead ringer for Andy Dick. In this quirky excursion, van der Jagt is a troubled young man, the scion of the most deranged family in all of Vienna. The narrator, whatever his name is, enters into a Freudian minefield in this narration of the tortured adolescent misadventures of a fellow with a wicked Electra complex, enough angst for three English shoe-gazing bands, and a penis resembling a baby carrot. The author's undeniable charm and unusual characters break the ice, but the novel devolves into a series of melodramatic train wrecks revolving around Marek's inability to find (and satisfy) his "crazy love," and thus the tale grows wearisome. As does reading and reading and reading about a dwarf penis.