Dr. Edwin Spindrift, a very ordinary lecturer in linguistics, has been sent home from Burma with a brain tumor. Closer to words than people, his sense of reality is further altered by his condition. The night before he is to be operated on, Spindrift decides—shaven-headed, shirtless, and penniless—to postpone the surgery by escaping from the hospital. Things and people he hardly knew existed outside of his dictionaries swoop down on him as he careens through adventures in nighttime London.
- ISBN10 0393316025
- ISBN13 9780393316025
- Publish Date 17 September 1997 (first published April 1968)
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 9 March 2021
- Publish Country US
- Imprint WW Norton & Co
- Format Paperback
- Pages 270
- Language English