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Ada
From “one of the most rigorous and serious—and anachronistic—novelists working today” (The Washington Post) comes a raucous new tale plumbing the depths of ego and ardor.
In a remote country in Europe, Gerard Desacroux IX, petty tyrant and French nationalist, wants nothing more than to be reunited with Ada, the object of his desire ever since their brief fling in Paris years before. Though Ada is on her way to visit, there are the unfortunate matters of civil unrest, assassination attempts, and Ada’s affluent (and highly inconvenient) husband to contend with before bliss is attained. Despite it all, Desacroux IX is determined that nothing—neither war, nor ominous weather, nor the rising swell of indignant peasants—shall stand between him and Ada.
Told with Mark Haber’s trademark exuberant absurdity, Ada is a comedy about the mania of power, unrequited love, and the solitude of authority.
In a remote country in Europe, Gerard Desacroux IX, petty tyrant and French nationalist, wants nothing more than to be reunited with Ada, the object of his desire ever since their brief fling in Paris years before. Though Ada is on her way to visit, there are the unfortunate matters of civil unrest, assassination attempts, and Ada’s affluent (and highly inconvenient) husband to contend with before bliss is attained. Despite it all, Desacroux IX is determined that nothing—neither war, nor ominous weather, nor the rising swell of indignant peasants—shall stand between him and Ada.
Told with Mark Haber’s trademark exuberant absurdity, Ada is a comedy about the mania of power, unrequited love, and the solitude of authority.
112 pages, Paperback
Published July 14, 2026
About the author
Mark Haber
9 books157 followersMark Haber was born in Washington DC and grew up in Florida. His first collection of stories, DEATHBED CONVERSIONS (2008), was translated into Spanish in a bilingual edition as MELVILLE'S BEARD (2017) by Editorial Argonáutica. His debut novel, REINHARDT'S GARDEN, was published by Coffee House Press in October 2019 and later nominated for the PEN/Hemingway Award for debut novel. His second novel, SAINT SEBASTIAN'S ABYSS, will also be published by Coffee House Press. Mark is the operations manager and a bookseller at Brazos Bookstore in Houston, Texas.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
July 18, 2026
Argh.... but is it really that funny, though? Bisexual nobleman and sex fiend Gerard Desacroux IV has been exiled from Paris and now lives on the family estate in Berchtesgaden - he claims he's not sure where that even his. Listen, Gerard: Nowadays, Berchtesgaden is in Bavaria, but Haber's story is set in the 18th century, near the end of the Holy Roman Empire of German Nations, so to solve the perpetual mystery that is brought up again and again in the book: Back then, Berchtesgarden was an independent Prince-Provostry, so an immediate principality of the Empire. You're welcome, Gerard.
Our Gerard is pacing around in his not-so-humble abode, awaiting his love, the beautiful orphan Ada, a one-night-stand from three years ago - and her wealthy husband Ehrhart, heir to a paisley textile empire (please note that in German, the two men would be Gerhart and Ehrhart). We hear Gerard's whacky stream-of-consciousness while he dreams of his oh-so-great-homeland, yearns for Ada, plots to duel her husband, condemns his butler Hans (allegedly too slow and stupid), all while the peasants plan a revolt because of the pointless war he has started with a neighboring princedom, and an inspector of the Holy Roman Empire riding towards him to reign the madman in. With his behavior, Gerard seems to continue his family tradition: Desacroux's father, a man who counted storming Jewish ghettos among his hobbies, was assassinated because of his role in the Siege of Flanders (maybe during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars?).
Desacroux reverberates À rebours mixed with Lieutenant Gustl energy, and Haber presents his story in a long, meandering stream-of-consciousness, fueled with absurdities steeped in contradictions: The nobleman in his family estate hates Erhart for his inherited privilege, praises his father for blatantly stupid behaviors, laughs at the fact that someone might read a book to cultivate the soul, and lives inside an obsession that has long ceased to be about a real woman named Ada.
Of course, Desacroux is the butt of the joke: Look at how entitled and stupid that French noblemen is! Hahaha, the French nobility, am I right? Granted, it's a short book, a novella, and Haber is great at evoking the voice of this wealthy, sex-obsessed idiot who has convinved himself that he found God in Ada, but it's basically the same joke over more than 100 pages. I got pretty bored pretty quickly.
Our Gerard is pacing around in his not-so-humble abode, awaiting his love, the beautiful orphan Ada, a one-night-stand from three years ago - and her wealthy husband Ehrhart, heir to a paisley textile empire (please note that in German, the two men would be Gerhart and Ehrhart). We hear Gerard's whacky stream-of-consciousness while he dreams of his oh-so-great-homeland, yearns for Ada, plots to duel her husband, condemns his butler Hans (allegedly too slow and stupid), all while the peasants plan a revolt because of the pointless war he has started with a neighboring princedom, and an inspector of the Holy Roman Empire riding towards him to reign the madman in. With his behavior, Gerard seems to continue his family tradition: Desacroux's father, a man who counted storming Jewish ghettos among his hobbies, was assassinated because of his role in the Siege of Flanders (maybe during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars?).
Desacroux reverberates À rebours mixed with Lieutenant Gustl energy, and Haber presents his story in a long, meandering stream-of-consciousness, fueled with absurdities steeped in contradictions: The nobleman in his family estate hates Erhart for his inherited privilege, praises his father for blatantly stupid behaviors, laughs at the fact that someone might read a book to cultivate the soul, and lives inside an obsession that has long ceased to be about a real woman named Ada.
Of course, Desacroux is the butt of the joke: Look at how entitled and stupid that French noblemen is! Hahaha, the French nobility, am I right? Granted, it's a short book, a novella, and Haber is great at evoking the voice of this wealthy, sex-obsessed idiot who has convinved himself that he found God in Ada, but it's basically the same joke over more than 100 pages. I got pretty bored pretty quickly.
Review of advance copy received from Edelweiss+
Only Run Circles Outside the Sword Closet
Mark Haber has crafted one of the year’s most impressive and distinct pieces of fiction with “Ada.” This novel practically insists on being finished in one go, yet a daring stylistic choice has the story unfolding as a single, uninterrupted paragraph–a feature that had not dawned on me until I was well into the book. Rather than impeding the reader, this relentless structure mirrors the feverish, manic internal state of its protagonist, Gerard Desacroux IV, ensuring that the wit and cleverness of the prose never lose their propulsive momentum.
At the heart of this satire is Gerard’s all-consuming obsession with Ada, an idealized figure from a fleeting Parisian past whom he has elevated into a divine object of desire. In Gerard’s mind, Ada is less a person and more a projection of his own need for meaning. To maintain this fantasy, he retreats repeatedly to the Sword Closet, a physical and psychological sanctuary where his ruminations can obscure the very real, very urgent dangers he faces as an incompetent ruler—namely, the brewing peasant revolutions, the threat of imperial inspectors, and his own ineptitude.
The brilliance of Haber’s characterization is anchored in the physical setting of the Great Room. Gerard’s relentless pacing within this space serves as a masterful, clever device: he turns in circles, physically mirroring his inability to move forward or address the collapse of his domain. The pacing is an active evasion of reality, a performative refusal to govern that defines his existence in the bleak, muddy borderlands of Berchtesgaden.
One of the most insightful and revealing elements of the novel is the strained, erratic relationship between Gerard and Hans, his manservant. Their dynamic is simultaneously abusive and codependent; Gerard subjects Hans to physical violence—repeatedly kicking him—while in the same breath claiming to love him. It is a confounding union that underscores the warped power dynamics of Gerard’s world, where his authority is exercised through pettiness and cruelty rather than any actual capability.
Ultimately, 'Ada' succeeds because it balances its intellectual rigor with a deliciously ridiculous absurdity. It is a profound, taut, and darkly funny examination of a narcissist in a cage of his own making, where the farce is as frighteningly human as it is comedic. Haber has crafted a masterpiece that forces us to laugh at the very tragedy of a life spent pacing toward a salvation that may never arrive.
Now I retreat to my particular Sword Closet. Thank you to Coffee House Press and Edelweiss Plus for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
Random quote:
“...my grandfather stupidly, ridiculously, decided not only to purchase books and collect books and surround himself with books, which, as I’ve already said, is fine and good, but also to read them, the fool!” – Gerard Desacroux IX
Mark Haber has crafted one of the year’s most impressive and distinct pieces of fiction with “Ada.” This novel practically insists on being finished in one go, yet a daring stylistic choice has the story unfolding as a single, uninterrupted paragraph–a feature that had not dawned on me until I was well into the book. Rather than impeding the reader, this relentless structure mirrors the feverish, manic internal state of its protagonist, Gerard Desacroux IV, ensuring that the wit and cleverness of the prose never lose their propulsive momentum.
At the heart of this satire is Gerard’s all-consuming obsession with Ada, an idealized figure from a fleeting Parisian past whom he has elevated into a divine object of desire. In Gerard’s mind, Ada is less a person and more a projection of his own need for meaning. To maintain this fantasy, he retreats repeatedly to the Sword Closet, a physical and psychological sanctuary where his ruminations can obscure the very real, very urgent dangers he faces as an incompetent ruler—namely, the brewing peasant revolutions, the threat of imperial inspectors, and his own ineptitude.
The brilliance of Haber’s characterization is anchored in the physical setting of the Great Room. Gerard’s relentless pacing within this space serves as a masterful, clever device: he turns in circles, physically mirroring his inability to move forward or address the collapse of his domain. The pacing is an active evasion of reality, a performative refusal to govern that defines his existence in the bleak, muddy borderlands of Berchtesgaden.
One of the most insightful and revealing elements of the novel is the strained, erratic relationship between Gerard and Hans, his manservant. Their dynamic is simultaneously abusive and codependent; Gerard subjects Hans to physical violence—repeatedly kicking him—while in the same breath claiming to love him. It is a confounding union that underscores the warped power dynamics of Gerard’s world, where his authority is exercised through pettiness and cruelty rather than any actual capability.
Ultimately, 'Ada' succeeds because it balances its intellectual rigor with a deliciously ridiculous absurdity. It is a profound, taut, and darkly funny examination of a narcissist in a cage of his own making, where the farce is as frighteningly human as it is comedic. Haber has crafted a masterpiece that forces us to laugh at the very tragedy of a life spent pacing toward a salvation that may never arrive.
Now I retreat to my particular Sword Closet. Thank you to Coffee House Press and Edelweiss Plus for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
Random quote:
“...my grandfather stupidly, ridiculously, decided not only to purchase books and collect books and surround himself with books, which, as I’ve already said, is fine and good, but also to read them, the fool!” – Gerard Desacroux IX
Review of advance copy received from Author
This book is why I give so many excellent books 4 stars, I save 5 stars for books that are exceptional and this is exceptional.
There are books that I think will prove to be classics, but few authors that I think will be read hundreds of years from now, Mark Haber is one such author.
Too many contemporary novels are clever in form, but devoid of content, or interesting in plot, maybe with an important message, but written in prose that is sophomoric and uninspired; Mark Haber, however, is for grown-up lovers of Literary Fiction. His syntax and diction stroke the language centers of the brain- long complex sentences with references to the worlds of art, music, literature, religion, history, and philosophical inquiry.
In novels fiercely intelligent, darkly funny, satirical, and propulsive, Haber explores what makes us vulnerably human: love, lust, obsession, hubris, insecurity, ambition, grief, sadness, and joy.
Mark Haber is not yet as well known as he surely will be, this is only his fourth novel, following Reinhardt's Garden, Saint Sebastian's Abyss, and Lesser Ruins, all from Coffeehouse Press, so there is still time to read his entire oeuvre and be able to say, with pride, “Mark Haber? Oh, I’ve been reading him from the beginning.”
Highly recommended
There are books that I think will prove to be classics, but few authors that I think will be read hundreds of years from now, Mark Haber is one such author.
Too many contemporary novels are clever in form, but devoid of content, or interesting in plot, maybe with an important message, but written in prose that is sophomoric and uninspired; Mark Haber, however, is for grown-up lovers of Literary Fiction. His syntax and diction stroke the language centers of the brain- long complex sentences with references to the worlds of art, music, literature, religion, history, and philosophical inquiry.
In novels fiercely intelligent, darkly funny, satirical, and propulsive, Haber explores what makes us vulnerably human: love, lust, obsession, hubris, insecurity, ambition, grief, sadness, and joy.
Mark Haber is not yet as well known as he surely will be, this is only his fourth novel, following Reinhardt's Garden, Saint Sebastian's Abyss, and Lesser Ruins, all from Coffeehouse Press, so there is still time to read his entire oeuvre and be able to say, with pride, “Mark Haber? Oh, I’ve been reading him from the beginning.”
Highly recommended
April 4, 2026
I am lucky enough to be friends with Mark and he sent me a manuscript a year ago, if you’re a fan of Mark’s previous novels then prepare yourself for him at his finest, with nods to Bernhard’s The Woodcutters and Heinrich Von Kleist’s Michael Kohlhaas this short novel will blow you away in every way possible. I will elaborate more and write a proper review once it’s closer to the publication as I don’t wish to spoil anything.
July 10, 2026
Probably Haber’s funniest book, the influences from Bernhard remain, and there is an explicit nod or two towards Nabokov. Haber allowed me to read a review copy, and I really hope that anyone who is interested in contemporary literature, unreliable, self-flagellating narrators, and a voice awash in cynical irony will pick this one up next week. Ada is as strong as his marvelous earlier books. The narrator sounds closest to the obsessive professor in Lesser Ruins, and the mad monologists in Bernhard’s Gargoyles and Klima’s Prince Sternenhoch have another noble to count in their company.
February 24, 2026
Off to the sword room.
July 5, 2026
You don’t need more than 90 pages 💪
Review of advance copy
As with his other books, this is just super funny. I was cackling a lot. The writing is just… ecstatic? Really captures a manic state in a very relatable way. About halfway through, I realized this reminded me of watching After Hours: entertaining the whole time, flexing prodigious technical feats, and I’m just helpless to resist the momentum, carried along with a big dopey grin. No monkey painting, this!
Review of advance copy received from Edelweiss+
Rating: 5 4.9* of five
The Publisher Says: From “one of the most rigorous and serious—and anachronistic—novelists working today” (The Washington Post) comes a raucous new tale plumbing the depths of ego and ardor.
In a remote country in Europe, Gerard Desacroux IX, petty tyrant and French nationalist, wants nothing more than to be reunited with Ada, the object of his desire ever since their brief fling in Paris years before. Though Ada is on her way to visit, there are the unfortunate matters of civil unrest, assassination attempts, and Ada’s affluent (and highly inconvenient) husband to contend with before bliss is attained. Despite it all, Desacroux IX is determined that nothing—neither war, nor ominous weather, nor the rising swell of indignant peasants—shall stand between him and Ada.
Told with Mark Haber’s trademark exuberant absurdity, Ada is a comedy about the mania of power, unrequited love, and the solitude of authority.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: Berchtesgaden. Are you even serious right now. Berchtesgaden! And Desacroux being shoved out of Paris because of THE Revolution, being scion of a lineage of disgusting fascist scum! Readerly nose, meet authorial fist.
And it *barely* takes him a hundred pages to whomp up this recipe for tart-tongued satire of entitlement. It's a fast-moving read, it doesn't have digressions or discursions to slow Desacroux's millrace of thoughts as he settles into Berchtesgaden (seriously, follow the link above...it makes this read exquisitely funny!) with the intent to claim what is not his for purposes malign and bland at the same time. It goes...not well, really for anyone but most definitely hastens Desacroux's comeuppance.
At every turn, he's hemmed in, he lives in a tine, muddy place of no significance after being thrown off the world stage for utter incompetence and uselessness. Desacroux paces in circles around his "Great" Room, abusing and being abused by Hans the sole servant; when the people rise against him, he retreats into the Sword Closet, an even smaller space than the "Great" Room, one with the trappings of power all around him...and he never grasps a single one, relying on isolation to "protect" him from consequences from his real-world abuses of power. Trapped with the trappings of power, weapons he does not have the skill or the wit to wield, fearful and waspish with it, utterly determined to possess *some*thing so he chooses a woman.
Reliably a safe choice for controlling men throughout history. It's here I got to thinking about Ada, or Ardor , Nabokov's longest work of fiction with its alternative world that so deftly, so lovingly, dissects the loss of the illusion of power by dwelling on its exterior trappings; both puissance, and intimate power are lost, misused, made into glue-traps of self-delusion and narcissism. The title, obviously, is a source of my mental leap from a short satire to a long and complicated exploration of similar themes. The sound of the word "Ada" is important in both works, but I don't think it's ever obvious they're related. Maybe they aren't, in Author Haber's purposeful use of brevity, more than coincidentally resonant and then only in my fevered head. Though I'll counsel anyone who starts this read and feels like abandoning it to read it aloud to youself for a page or two: This is performative language, meant to be performed, to be inhabited like its not-quite-our reality. Make the sounds, speak the vision into your world. It will change your experience for the better. (I do this with Nabokov's prose, too.)
It did make my propulsive experience of this single paragraph of a read more piquant, so I hope it was really in Author Haber's mind nit solely mine. The fate of each Ada, and her illicit suitor, is oddly enough not the real point of the story. It ends not with a bang but a whimper, like most people's lives do without regard to their egocentric self-aggrandizement. It's here that I dock my tenth of a star from a perfect five. Desacroux clearly believes he is fated for the ending of a Great Man, and nothing short of that is an ending. *I* think he deserves to be beaten almost to death, then thrown into a muddy ditch to drown while dying of thirst: "...the importance of literature and books, not the books themselves, I’ve said, quite frankly books bore me, but the presence of books is vital, because the absence of books is quite disastrous, the proximity of books, the symbolic importance of owning books, cannot be overstated, and having books around, read or not, speaks to the intellectual vigor and peerless ambitions of their owner," and "...my grandfather stupidly, ridiculously, decided not only to purchase books and collect books and surround himself with books, which, as I’ve already said, is fine and good, but also to read them, the fool!"
Off with his authorial head, I say in my Red Queen voice, for even crafting these sentences! For sinful wicked shame on you, Haber!
The Publisher Says: From “one of the most rigorous and serious—and anachronistic—novelists working today” (The Washington Post) comes a raucous new tale plumbing the depths of ego and ardor.
In a remote country in Europe, Gerard Desacroux IX, petty tyrant and French nationalist, wants nothing more than to be reunited with Ada, the object of his desire ever since their brief fling in Paris years before. Though Ada is on her way to visit, there are the unfortunate matters of civil unrest, assassination attempts, and Ada’s affluent (and highly inconvenient) husband to contend with before bliss is attained. Despite it all, Desacroux IX is determined that nothing—neither war, nor ominous weather, nor the rising swell of indignant peasants—shall stand between him and Ada.
Told with Mark Haber’s trademark exuberant absurdity, Ada is a comedy about the mania of power, unrequited love, and the solitude of authority.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: Berchtesgaden. Are you even serious right now. Berchtesgaden! And Desacroux being shoved out of Paris because of THE Revolution, being scion of a lineage of disgusting fascist scum! Readerly nose, meet authorial fist.
And it *barely* takes him a hundred pages to whomp up this recipe for tart-tongued satire of entitlement. It's a fast-moving read, it doesn't have digressions or discursions to slow Desacroux's millrace of thoughts as he settles into Berchtesgaden (seriously, follow the link above...it makes this read exquisitely funny!) with the intent to claim what is not his for purposes malign and bland at the same time. It goes...not well, really for anyone but most definitely hastens Desacroux's comeuppance.
At every turn, he's hemmed in, he lives in a tine, muddy place of no significance after being thrown off the world stage for utter incompetence and uselessness. Desacroux paces in circles around his "Great" Room, abusing and being abused by Hans the sole servant; when the people rise against him, he retreats into the Sword Closet, an even smaller space than the "Great" Room, one with the trappings of power all around him...and he never grasps a single one, relying on isolation to "protect" him from consequences from his real-world abuses of power. Trapped with the trappings of power, weapons he does not have the skill or the wit to wield, fearful and waspish with it, utterly determined to possess *some*thing so he chooses a woman.
Reliably a safe choice for controlling men throughout history. It's here I got to thinking about Ada, or Ardor , Nabokov's longest work of fiction with its alternative world that so deftly, so lovingly, dissects the loss of the illusion of power by dwelling on its exterior trappings; both puissance, and intimate power are lost, misused, made into glue-traps of self-delusion and narcissism. The title, obviously, is a source of my mental leap from a short satire to a long and complicated exploration of similar themes. The sound of the word "Ada" is important in both works, but I don't think it's ever obvious they're related. Maybe they aren't, in Author Haber's purposeful use of brevity, more than coincidentally resonant and then only in my fevered head. Though I'll counsel anyone who starts this read and feels like abandoning it to read it aloud to youself for a page or two: This is performative language, meant to be performed, to be inhabited like its not-quite-our reality. Make the sounds, speak the vision into your world. It will change your experience for the better. (I do this with Nabokov's prose, too.)
It did make my propulsive experience of this single paragraph of a read more piquant, so I hope it was really in Author Haber's mind nit solely mine. The fate of each Ada, and her illicit suitor, is oddly enough not the real point of the story. It ends not with a bang but a whimper, like most people's lives do without regard to their egocentric self-aggrandizement. It's here that I dock my tenth of a star from a perfect five. Desacroux clearly believes he is fated for the ending of a Great Man, and nothing short of that is an ending. *I* think he deserves to be beaten almost to death, then thrown into a muddy ditch to drown while dying of thirst: "...the importance of literature and books, not the books themselves, I’ve said, quite frankly books bore me, but the presence of books is vital, because the absence of books is quite disastrous, the proximity of books, the symbolic importance of owning books, cannot be overstated, and having books around, read or not, speaks to the intellectual vigor and peerless ambitions of their owner," and "...my grandfather stupidly, ridiculously, decided not only to purchase books and collect books and surround himself with books, which, as I’ve already said, is fine and good, but also to read them, the fool!"
Off with his authorial head, I say in my Red Queen voice, for even crafting these sentences! For sinful wicked shame on you, Haber!
Review of advance copy received from Edelweiss+
Ada is the 4th novel in an increasingly impressive body of work by Mark Haber after the brilliant Reinhardt's Garden, Saint Sebastian's Abyss and Lesser Ruins.
Haber himself describes his own novels as 'Thomas Bernhard if he'd grown up watching the Coen Brothers', with although self-admittedly, reductive gives a brilliant impression of how he's taken the great Austrian's work and massively dialled up the humour.
Ada is narrated by Gerald Desacroux IV, a French nobel but, after his father was exiled from France from his role in leading the calamatious Siege of Flanders, now occupying a castle in the Berchtesgarden, a forsaken territory either in Saxony or Bavaria (he's not sure).
The novel is narrated at one continuous stream while he paces in circles in the castle's Great Room (one that, in a nod to the Woodcutters, also contains a wing-tipped armchair). His servant Hans is manning the Guardhouse tower keeping a watchout for the promised visit from Ehrhart (who has inherited a business from his relative who, in the novel, invested Paisley - although neither from Persia nor Paisley) and his wife Ada, with whom (although at that point she was unmarried) Desacroux had a passionate one-night affair with in Paris, just before he was summoned into exile.
While invited as a friendly gesture, the narrator plans to declare his undying love for Ada and expects to then end up duelling with Ehrhart.
Meanwhile, the locals peasants - who he holds in hilarious contempt - are revolting, in part due to another foolish war which he launched on a neighbouring princedom, his father having also been killed in a previous revolt that lay seige to the castle. And inspectors from the Holy Roman may also arrive at any moment (although that's been true for some years)
… I consider Ehrhart's ability to touch, fondle, and molest Ada simply on account of the affluence and privilege provided by his uncle's paisley pattern, as well as inheriting an abundance of filthy paisley cash resulting no doubt in a paisley empire, but I banish these thoughts as 1 pace before the fire in the Great Room, making loops in the Great Room, stopping to curse a manservant positioned beside the deep-winged armchair, the same place I left him when Hans interrupted my pacing to ask permission to piss off of the balustrade of the Guardhouse tower, the aides and sentinels just outside the Great Room too numerous to count, defending the castle and, by extension, the Great Room and thus, by extension, me, and going further in the same direction, that is outwards, the defenders traversing the barricades and embankments, soldiers whose numbers have only grown since my father's assassination, my father exploded by a catapult while 1 was in the Sword Closet touching myself, me afloat in a cosmos of self-love when my father exploded, busy as he was fortifying the battlements in anticipation of an imperial inspection, namely the Habsburg Inspector General, …
A short work - less than 100 pages - and less digressive than some of Haber's previous works, but with the same blend of sarcastic humour and erudition.
4.5 stars.
Haber himself describes his own novels as 'Thomas Bernhard if he'd grown up watching the Coen Brothers', with although self-admittedly, reductive gives a brilliant impression of how he's taken the great Austrian's work and massively dialled up the humour.
Ada is narrated by Gerald Desacroux IV, a French nobel but, after his father was exiled from France from his role in leading the calamatious Siege of Flanders, now occupying a castle in the Berchtesgarden, a forsaken territory either in Saxony or Bavaria (he's not sure).
The novel is narrated at one continuous stream while he paces in circles in the castle's Great Room (one that, in a nod to the Woodcutters, also contains a wing-tipped armchair). His servant Hans is manning the Guardhouse tower keeping a watchout for the promised visit from Ehrhart (who has inherited a business from his relative who, in the novel, invested Paisley - although neither from Persia nor Paisley) and his wife Ada, with whom (although at that point she was unmarried) Desacroux had a passionate one-night affair with in Paris, just before he was summoned into exile.
While invited as a friendly gesture, the narrator plans to declare his undying love for Ada and expects to then end up duelling with Ehrhart.
Meanwhile, the locals peasants - who he holds in hilarious contempt - are revolting, in part due to another foolish war which he launched on a neighbouring princedom, his father having also been killed in a previous revolt that lay seige to the castle. And inspectors from the Holy Roman may also arrive at any moment (although that's been true for some years)
… I consider Ehrhart's ability to touch, fondle, and molest Ada simply on account of the affluence and privilege provided by his uncle's paisley pattern, as well as inheriting an abundance of filthy paisley cash resulting no doubt in a paisley empire, but I banish these thoughts as 1 pace before the fire in the Great Room, making loops in the Great Room, stopping to curse a manservant positioned beside the deep-winged armchair, the same place I left him when Hans interrupted my pacing to ask permission to piss off of the balustrade of the Guardhouse tower, the aides and sentinels just outside the Great Room too numerous to count, defending the castle and, by extension, the Great Room and thus, by extension, me, and going further in the same direction, that is outwards, the defenders traversing the barricades and embankments, soldiers whose numbers have only grown since my father's assassination, my father exploded by a catapult while 1 was in the Sword Closet touching myself, me afloat in a cosmos of self-love when my father exploded, busy as he was fortifying the battlements in anticipation of an imperial inspection, namely the Habsburg Inspector General, …
A short work - less than 100 pages - and less digressive than some of Haber's previous works, but with the same blend of sarcastic humour and erudition.
4.5 stars.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Ada is a work of metafictional excess and philosophical play, unfolding as a lavishly stylized interior monologue that blurs the boundaries between historical pastiche, political allegory, and lyrical invention. Through the voice of Gerard Desacroux IV, Haber constructs a world where grandiose imagination and intimate longing coexist, each amplifying the other in a continuous performance of thought, memory, and self-mythologizing authority. The result is a novel that feels both operatic and intricately self-aware, sustained by a prose style that is ornate, rhythmic, and deliberately unrestrained in its intellectual ambition.
The book is an exploration of power, desire, and perception. How individuals construct meaning through narrative even as the structures around them grow unstable and absurd. Haber’s narrator moves fluidly between contemplation and catastrophe, ceremony and collapse, rendering the aristocratic world of Berchtesgaden as both theatrical stage and psychological landscape. The language itself becomes a governing force, shaping events as much as describing them, while recurring motifs of inheritance, war, and cultural performance deepen the novel’s philosophical resonance.
The idiosyncrasy of this work is its sustained commitment to voice: a singular, unbroken cadence that transforms reflection into spectacle and spectacle into reflection. Humor, erudition, and intensity converge in a narrative that is as conceptually rich as it is stylistically immersive. Ada stands as a striking example of contemporary experimental fiction. Bold in conception, exacting in execution, and compelling in its invitation to read language not merely as a vehicle for story, but as the story itself.
The book is an exploration of power, desire, and perception. How individuals construct meaning through narrative even as the structures around them grow unstable and absurd. Haber’s narrator moves fluidly between contemplation and catastrophe, ceremony and collapse, rendering the aristocratic world of Berchtesgaden as both theatrical stage and psychological landscape. The language itself becomes a governing force, shaping events as much as describing them, while recurring motifs of inheritance, war, and cultural performance deepen the novel’s philosophical resonance.
The idiosyncrasy of this work is its sustained commitment to voice: a singular, unbroken cadence that transforms reflection into spectacle and spectacle into reflection. Humor, erudition, and intensity converge in a narrative that is as conceptually rich as it is stylistically immersive. Ada stands as a striking example of contemporary experimental fiction. Bold in conception, exacting in execution, and compelling in its invitation to read language not merely as a vehicle for story, but as the story itself.
Review of advance copy received from Edelweiss+
...and so the text continues its relentless, breathless descent without a single typographical pause to rescue the reader from Mark Haber’s manic structural ego-trip, an omission of punctuation that perfectly mirrors my own unyielding cognitive fixation on my pup Kingsley, who is not merely a dog but a rare and highly sought-after lemon beagle distinguished entirely by his aristocratic yellow patches on a pristine white coat, a creature of such elite genetic scarcity that his subsequent incarceration in the veterinary drunk tank feels less like a standard domestic mishap and more like the tragic downfall of a pale-coated nobleman who simply could not resist the siren song of my rum and coke during a brief bathroom interlude, which is to say that while Haber’s narrator spends a hundred pages pacing a remote European estate pretending his obsession with the elusive Ada is a grand intellectual pursuit, I am trapped in a far more compelling single-paragraph reality where a citrus-toned hound of pure aesthetic perfection is being booked for public intoxication at the local clinic, rendering the book's total lack of periods not a mere stylistic gimmick but the literal velocity of a brain trying to process how a rare canine specimen managed to hijack a highball glass the moment its owner's back was turned. Oh, and there’s Ada. I hear she’s pretty or whatever. 4 stars
Thanks to Coffee House Press, Mark Haber (author), and Edelweiss for the digital review copy of Ada. Their generosity did not influence my review.
Thanks to Coffee House Press, Mark Haber (author), and Edelweiss for the digital review copy of Ada. Their generosity did not influence my review.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
culture presents itself in manifold ways, i’ve counseled hans on numerous occasions, expounding the importance of literature and books, not the books themselves, i’ve said, quite frankly books bore me, but the presence of books is vital, because the absence of books is quite disastrous, the proximity of books, the symbolic importance of owning books, cannot be overstated, and having books around, read or not, speaks to the intellectual vigor and peerless ambitions of their owner.hard to imagine so much utter hilarity in so slim a work, but mark haber’s fourth novel is, by far, the funniest book this reader has read in ages. with enough wit and charming ribaldry to give your rectus abdominis a proper workout, ada is the tale of a duncical autocrat ruling his realm not by principled fiat, but instead by vibes and whim. with its absurdist bent, delectably wending prose, and some truly unforgettable scenes, ada is first-rate farce at its uproarious best.
July 15, 2026
I had a full review written for this, honest I did, but I decided to bag it because it just didn’t capture the spirit of the book at all.
It needs one and only one piece of analysis, and defies the rest: the book is funny as hell.
Checking in at 90 pages, it’s annoyingly short, but at the same time the 91st page might have been ruinous to the book’s design. It’s structured like a one-act play, layer after layer building up to a feral climax. Haber, here, plays the puppetmaster, of a troupe of asshole and nincompoop puppets and if nothing else it’s lovely to watch them suffer their own anxieties and incompetencies, and suffer each other's company.
It needs one and only one piece of analysis, and defies the rest: the book is funny as hell.
Checking in at 90 pages, it’s annoyingly short, but at the same time the 91st page might have been ruinous to the book’s design. It’s structured like a one-act play, layer after layer building up to a feral climax. Haber, here, plays the puppetmaster, of a troupe of asshole and nincompoop puppets and if nothing else it’s lovely to watch them suffer their own anxieties and incompetencies, and suffer each other's company.
Review of advance copy received from Edelweiss+
3.5
A tyrant in all his ineptitude cleverly dissected. This is my second Haber and, while less present than in his Saint Sebastian's Abyss, there is still some of Berhnard's template (vitriol, repetitions, etc.). I adore Bernhard but I am glad that Haber is emerging, though not yet completely, out of his shadow, finding his own literary voice.
A tyrant in all his ineptitude cleverly dissected. This is my second Haber and, while less present than in his Saint Sebastian's Abyss, there is still some of Berhnard's template (vitriol, repetitions, etc.). I adore Bernhard but I am glad that Haber is emerging, though not yet completely, out of his shadow, finding his own literary voice.
Review of advance copy received from Edelweiss+
brb going to the sword room
Review of advance copy received from Author
I know it’s not out yet but please preorder. It’s his best yet. And that’s saying something. He’s one of the best writers working today. PREORDER!
July 19, 2026
Another great one from Mark Haber. Funny emperor with no clothes story - at least he had Ada.
Review of advance copy received from Edelweiss+
4,5
Another short, hilarious, absurd and completely over the top historical novella by one of the funniest authors I know.
The setting is the grey and muddy territory of Berchtesgaden, in Saxony (or maybe Bavaria, nobody knows and nobody cares), where a French nobleman, Gerard Desacroux IV, is installed as ruler (this makes me think the book is set during the Napoleonic era - though the Habsburgs are around too, but again, who cares).
Desacroux - a horrible and incompetent ruler, hated by the peasants for raising taxes and sending them into an unnecessary war - spends his days pacing around in his castle, eagerly awaiting his beautiful Ada to arrive from his beloved France, a country so much more refined, so much more cultured than dimwitted Berchtesgaden, Berchtesgaden, 'a country that’s everything France is not, the inverse of France, France’s opposite, France’s repugnant cousin, I think, a country so backward and abhorrent the sun refuses to breach its borders...' etc etc.
As in Haber's previous works it's full of hyperboles and repetition. I laughed a lot. It can be exhausting but it's also very short.
(I wonder where Haber gets his inspiration and topics...the last one was about a book-length essay on Montaigne, and there was already a short section of the Bavarian Alps. And also in St Sebastian's Abyss there is a fantastic German, Schmidt...)
Many thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for the e-arc!
Another short, hilarious, absurd and completely over the top historical novella by one of the funniest authors I know.
The setting is the grey and muddy territory of Berchtesgaden, in Saxony (or maybe Bavaria, nobody knows and nobody cares), where a French nobleman, Gerard Desacroux IV, is installed as ruler (this makes me think the book is set during the Napoleonic era - though the Habsburgs are around too, but again, who cares).
Desacroux - a horrible and incompetent ruler, hated by the peasants for raising taxes and sending them into an unnecessary war - spends his days pacing around in his castle, eagerly awaiting his beautiful Ada to arrive from his beloved France, a country so much more refined, so much more cultured than dimwitted Berchtesgaden, Berchtesgaden, 'a country that’s everything France is not, the inverse of France, France’s opposite, France’s repugnant cousin, I think, a country so backward and abhorrent the sun refuses to breach its borders...' etc etc.
As in Haber's previous works it's full of hyperboles and repetition. I laughed a lot. It can be exhausting but it's also very short.
(I wonder where Haber gets his inspiration and topics...the last one was about a book-length essay on Montaigne, and there was already a short section of the Bavarian Alps. And also in St Sebastian's Abyss there is a fantastic German, Schmidt...)
Many thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for the e-arc!
June 15, 2026
“Culture presents itself in manifold ways, I’ve counselled Hans on numerous occasions, expounding the importance of literature and books, not the books themselves, I’ve said, quite frankly books bore me, but the presence of books is vital, because the absence of books is quite disastrous, the proximity of books, the symbolic importance of owning books, cannot be overstated, and having books around, read or not, speaks to the intellectual vigour and peerless ambitions of their owner.”
——
If you’ve been following me for some time now, you know what a big fan I am of Mark Haber’s work; Deathbed Conversions, Reinhardt’s Garden, Saint Sebastian’s Abyss, and Lesser Ruins all drew me in and moved me in their own unique way, though they share several qualities that are distinctly Haberian/Haberesque. I’m not sure if we’ve settled on an authorial eponym for his writing, by the way, but anyone who has read Haber’s work knows that it’s deserving of one.
Ada, Haber’s forthcoming 90-page novella, is a perfect distillation of these distinctive qualities I’m referring to. The narrative follows French petty tyrant and egomaniacal ne’er-do-well, Gerard Desacroux IV, to the remote land of Berchtesgaden. Gerard is madly and obsessively in lust with Ada, a woman with whom he had a fleeting intimate liaison with in Paris. She is, to his dismay and disgust, now married to Ehrhart, a wealthy inheritor of the paisley pattern fortune.
While Gerard anticipates their expected visit to his isolated ancestral estate, he offers the reader a vitriolic rant aimed at the confluence of unfortunate people and circumstances that are supposedly interfering with his long-anticipated reunion with Ada: the incompetent servants, peasant uprisings, failed wars, assassination attempts, and even the Holy Roman Empire to name but a few. His ignorance and incompetence are on full display (see quote above), and it would be even funnier if it weren’t for the fact that we witness such diabolical stupidity from those in positions of power on a daily basis.
Ada, like Mark’s other work, is a beguiling mixture of highbrow intellect with lowbrow humour, biting satire with affable sincerity, and historical subject matter with present-day applicability. The text is also in conversation with some great works of literature including Cervantes’ Don Quixote, Kleist’s Michael Kohlhaas, and even Buzzati’s The Stronghold (a personal favourite); if you enjoy the wit, tone, or themes of any of the these texts, it’s likely you’d enjoy this one as well.
——
If you’ve been following me for some time now, you know what a big fan I am of Mark Haber’s work; Deathbed Conversions, Reinhardt’s Garden, Saint Sebastian’s Abyss, and Lesser Ruins all drew me in and moved me in their own unique way, though they share several qualities that are distinctly Haberian/Haberesque. I’m not sure if we’ve settled on an authorial eponym for his writing, by the way, but anyone who has read Haber’s work knows that it’s deserving of one.
Ada, Haber’s forthcoming 90-page novella, is a perfect distillation of these distinctive qualities I’m referring to. The narrative follows French petty tyrant and egomaniacal ne’er-do-well, Gerard Desacroux IV, to the remote land of Berchtesgaden. Gerard is madly and obsessively in lust with Ada, a woman with whom he had a fleeting intimate liaison with in Paris. She is, to his dismay and disgust, now married to Ehrhart, a wealthy inheritor of the paisley pattern fortune.
While Gerard anticipates their expected visit to his isolated ancestral estate, he offers the reader a vitriolic rant aimed at the confluence of unfortunate people and circumstances that are supposedly interfering with his long-anticipated reunion with Ada: the incompetent servants, peasant uprisings, failed wars, assassination attempts, and even the Holy Roman Empire to name but a few. His ignorance and incompetence are on full display (see quote above), and it would be even funnier if it weren’t for the fact that we witness such diabolical stupidity from those in positions of power on a daily basis.
Ada, like Mark’s other work, is a beguiling mixture of highbrow intellect with lowbrow humour, biting satire with affable sincerity, and historical subject matter with present-day applicability. The text is also in conversation with some great works of literature including Cervantes’ Don Quixote, Kleist’s Michael Kohlhaas, and even Buzzati’s The Stronghold (a personal favourite); if you enjoy the wit, tone, or themes of any of the these texts, it’s likely you’d enjoy this one as well.
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