The Mezzanine - Tapa blanda

The Mezzanine is the story of one man's lunch hour. It addresses the big questions of corporate life, like: Why does one shoelace always wear out before the other? Whose genius lies behind the folding spout on the milk carton? Whatever happened to the paper drinking-straw? Nicholson Baker's hilarious debut novel documents the thoughts of an office worker as he day-dreams on the escalator, on his way to buy shoe-laces. Sparklingly original, intelligent and digressive, it paved the way for authors such as David Foster Wallace and Joshua Ferris and introduced one of the most controversial and acclaimed authors in America today.

NICHOLSON BAKER was born in New York in 1957. He is the author of eight novels, including The Mezzanine, Vox and Room Temperature (all Granta Books), and five non-fiction works, including U & I (also Granta) and Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper, for which he won the 2001 National Book Critics Circle Award.