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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 books173 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 - 30 of 49 reviews
April 27, 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+
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+
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
August 17, 2026
2.5 stars
Years ago, my husband and I had a running joke, "we are against humour in literature." Obviously the joke was on us, because how can you be against humour, and what would literature be without it? But it was also true, because things that try to be funny can get on your nerves like nothing else.
So, this was a comedy, I think. It was a long stream of consciousness monologue by a despicable French nobleman during which we learn about his exile to a thankless Mittel-European principality, his sexual obsession for a woman he met once and his intention to kill her paisley-pioneer husband, his chronic misunderstanding of his own father and his determination never to read a book.
All the elements of comedy are here, the obsession, the absurdity and the self-entitled voice, but as it progressed I came to the conclusion that, for me, it just wasn't funny. To find that someone gives themself away to comic effect, I think there needs to be some chance that they were important or reputable to begin with, and there was none of this.
Haber clearly has talent but I just couldn't see what he was getting at here--maybe because I just am against humour in literature.
Years ago, my husband and I had a running joke, "we are against humour in literature." Obviously the joke was on us, because how can you be against humour, and what would literature be without it? But it was also true, because things that try to be funny can get on your nerves like nothing else.
So, this was a comedy, I think. It was a long stream of consciousness monologue by a despicable French nobleman during which we learn about his exile to a thankless Mittel-European principality, his sexual obsession for a woman he met once and his intention to kill her paisley-pioneer husband, his chronic misunderstanding of his own father and his determination never to read a book.
All the elements of comedy are here, the obsession, the absurdity and the self-entitled voice, but as it progressed I came to the conclusion that, for me, it just wasn't funny. To find that someone gives themself away to comic effect, I think there needs to be some chance that they were important or reputable to begin with, and there was none of this.
Haber clearly has talent but I just couldn't see what he was getting at here--maybe because I just am against humour in literature.
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
January 12, 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.
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.
July 10, 2026
https://youtu.be/AsZhCyILkcE?is=5-Unb...
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.
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.
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.
February 24, 2026
Off to the sword room.
July 25, 2026
Pretty fun but also pretty sloppy. It’s 90 pages so I’ll cut it some slack—however, it’s marked as a novel so we also can’t have it both ways. Following the excellent Saint Sebastian’s Abyss and the somehow even better Lesser Ruins, which really felt like a leap forward in style, substance, and the ability to stack and interweave various concerns, this felt like an afterthought and a regression to something more comfortable and two-dimensionally Berhardian in a way that after the ascending trajectory of the last two novels, felt a bit stale and schticky and safe. Mark can be a very funny writer, but there are times in Reinhardt’s Garden and even more in this novel, which feels closest to RG, where the humor thinly masks a neediness in the style itself that goes beyond the first person narrator. I think it’s Haber’s worst habit as a writer and one that had largely vanished in Lesser Ruins.
Still, I had fun reading this and like any Haber effort there are wonderful passages and absurd bits. I thought the sudden climax was done really well and happened so economically that I didn’t have time to predict it. Hans constantly pissing in the wrong direction and that being a problem that needs to be solved? Great. Ehrhart being the heir to the paisley fortune? One of my favorite Haber bits yet.
Still, I had fun reading this and like any Haber effort there are wonderful passages and absurd bits. I thought the sudden climax was done really well and happened so economically that I didn’t have time to predict it. Hans constantly pissing in the wrong direction and that being a problem that needs to be solved? Great. Ehrhart being the heir to the paisley fortune? One of my favorite Haber bits yet.
July 23, 2026
Mark Haber can certainly write! A very entertaining read that was also quite funny!!!
The reel: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbJEil...
The reel: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbJEil...
July 31, 2026
“Lecherous, despicable, a libertine single-minded in his appetites, who longed for something more palpable than the physical world could offer, until the moment I observed Ada, a ray of God, a celestial light, and was given at last a taste of the infinite.”
The latest from Mark Haber is best read in one sitting. Whether you’re by the pool, in the park or at the beach, Ada is a taut piece of literary fiction that perfectly juxtaposes the high brow with the low brow. In ninety pages, Haber has written a near perfect summer read.
“Great and heroic men are as plagued by nonsense as the rest of us.”
The novella begins with Descaroux IV pacing the Great Room awaiting the arrival of Ada and Erhart, pondering all and everything: his father’s assassination, Ada’s arrival, civil unrest, his servant Hans, but mostly about Ada in the Sword Closet. Ada, is the object of Gerard Desacroux IV’s longing and obsession. Four or five years earlier, after years of lusting and drugging in Paris and acting out his most perverse erotic wishes, Gerard met Ada while shopping for her mistress. The two spent an evening making love and he then vowed his eternal love for her. The next day, Gerard is to return, as per his father’s summons, to the territory of Berchtesgaden. Compared to the playground that is Paris, Descaroux IV is not pleased to return to the place he describes as “all mud and hardship, a nation-state between Saxony and Bavaria” filled with unrich culture.
“My father exploded by a catapult while I was in the Sword Closet touching myself.”
What ensues is an entertaining rumination of Descaroux IV’s consciousness, that makes for an entertaining and at times enlightening reading experience. Feverish pacing matches in the incantations of his resentment and disgust for his people. Even with Descaroux IV being a despicable character, perhaps a victim of his circumstance, I couldn’t put this book down. Whether Haber is writing about the ridiculousness of duels, paisley, pieces of bone, self love, or the vice of literature, Ada is a book that is laugh out loud funny.
FFO The Loser by Thomas Bernhard, The Stronghold by Dino Buzzati, Heinrich von Kleist by Michael Kohlhaas, Candide by Voltaire and Haber’s previous works.
The latest from Mark Haber is best read in one sitting. Whether you’re by the pool, in the park or at the beach, Ada is a taut piece of literary fiction that perfectly juxtaposes the high brow with the low brow. In ninety pages, Haber has written a near perfect summer read.
“Great and heroic men are as plagued by nonsense as the rest of us.”
The novella begins with Descaroux IV pacing the Great Room awaiting the arrival of Ada and Erhart, pondering all and everything: his father’s assassination, Ada’s arrival, civil unrest, his servant Hans, but mostly about Ada in the Sword Closet. Ada, is the object of Gerard Desacroux IV’s longing and obsession. Four or five years earlier, after years of lusting and drugging in Paris and acting out his most perverse erotic wishes, Gerard met Ada while shopping for her mistress. The two spent an evening making love and he then vowed his eternal love for her. The next day, Gerard is to return, as per his father’s summons, to the territory of Berchtesgaden. Compared to the playground that is Paris, Descaroux IV is not pleased to return to the place he describes as “all mud and hardship, a nation-state between Saxony and Bavaria” filled with unrich culture.
“My father exploded by a catapult while I was in the Sword Closet touching myself.”
What ensues is an entertaining rumination of Descaroux IV’s consciousness, that makes for an entertaining and at times enlightening reading experience. Feverish pacing matches in the incantations of his resentment and disgust for his people. Even with Descaroux IV being a despicable character, perhaps a victim of his circumstance, I couldn’t put this book down. Whether Haber is writing about the ridiculousness of duels, paisley, pieces of bone, self love, or the vice of literature, Ada is a book that is laugh out loud funny.
FFO The Loser by Thomas Bernhard, The Stronghold by Dino Buzzati, Heinrich von Kleist by Michael Kohlhaas, Candide by Voltaire and Haber’s previous works.
July 5, 2026
You don’t need more than 90 pages 💪
October 7, 2026
”I think, what I wouldn't give to have the paisley wealth from the paisley design with none of the attachments of the throne, growing furious picturing the enormity of Ehrhart's paisley fortune as well as the countless ways he must have utilized it in order to court Ada, to touch Ada, how he now makes love to Ada, probably as much as he wants, whenever the mood strikes, bolstered in every manner by his paisley inheritance, and I want to wail and weep each time 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 I 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…”
That sentence goes on for another page and then you are treated to another multi page run on sentence. If that doesn’t sound like your jam (i.e. if you do not like swimming in the stream of consciousness), maybe best hold off on this book. If it is your jam, this will probably be the funniest book you’ve read all year.
The book is one 90-page monologue given by a newly appointed king who is plagued by the rebellions and protests of his starving citizens, but mostly concerned with the arrival of Ada, the woman who awakened him sexually. This book perfectly captures anxious thought spiraling and was an absolute joy to read. Yes, there are a thousand commas, but I loved seeing multiple emotions rise and fall within the span of a single sentence. The isolation of power is not really a new topic in literature (it takes up considerable space in Richard II) but the deranged language and humor here really give this book some pizzaz and make me really really excited to read Mark Haber’s other books. Highly recommend!
September 22, 2026
I’m new to Mark Haber, and on the strength of this I will be seeking out more of his books. I was assured that he writes with wry humour, usually succinct historical fiction featuring flawed male narrators. That certainly is the case here.
Gerard Desacroux IV, the son of a dead French nobleman has been exiled to Berchtesgaden, “a lump of land tottering between Bavaria and Saxony.” Gerard’s opinion regarding his geographical location is just the start of his bottomless apathy and contempt. He is a sort of baron or petty king, but that chiefly means keeping the locals at bay and various menial privala series of food tasters ready to monitor potential poisonings. Like a chastened teenager though, he is filled with apathy and contempt at his geographical situation, a place where winter is “greedily devouring ten months of the year with the remaining two left for mud and disease”.
The only brightness on his horizon is a woman, Ada, with whom he once had a short affair in Paris as a younger man. He has invited her to visit, unfortunately with a husband, the heir to a fortune in the paisley-design business. They are apparently on route, and he has assigned his useless butler to watch for them.
Despite the setting being the dying days of the Holy Roman Emoure, the late 18th century, Gerard’s character could be from any era; he is the archetypal wastrel, incompetent at almost everything he does and yet constantly incensed at other people’s efforts.
Haber writes with great skill though, for as useless and ignorant as Gerard is, he is still in power, and getting the balance right so it remains plausible, is key. It’s a sharp depiction of fetid indignant leadership.
Gerard Desacroux IV, the son of a dead French nobleman has been exiled to Berchtesgaden, “a lump of land tottering between Bavaria and Saxony.” Gerard’s opinion regarding his geographical location is just the start of his bottomless apathy and contempt. He is a sort of baron or petty king, but that chiefly means keeping the locals at bay and various menial privala series of food tasters ready to monitor potential poisonings. Like a chastened teenager though, he is filled with apathy and contempt at his geographical situation, a place where winter is “greedily devouring ten months of the year with the remaining two left for mud and disease”.
The only brightness on his horizon is a woman, Ada, with whom he once had a short affair in Paris as a younger man. He has invited her to visit, unfortunately with a husband, the heir to a fortune in the paisley-design business. They are apparently on route, and he has assigned his useless butler to watch for them.
Despite the setting being the dying days of the Holy Roman Emoure, the late 18th century, Gerard’s character could be from any era; he is the archetypal wastrel, incompetent at almost everything he does and yet constantly incensed at other people’s efforts.
Haber writes with great skill though, for as useless and ignorant as Gerard is, he is still in power, and getting the balance right so it remains plausible, is key. It’s a sharp depiction of fetid indignant leadership.
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!
tasted
July 24, 2026This is as good a version of this sort of book that I can imagine, but it just isn’t the sort of book I go for anymore, so I merely tasted it.
July 27, 2026
I love these Haber joints. Ada doesn't necessarily introduce much new and it is on the slimmer side, but I'll keep reading as many of these that I can get.
August 17, 2026
He's done it again
September 9, 2026
4.5. LOVED this. best piece of fiction ive read in weeks…so dark and funny and sharp. need to read everything i can find by mark haber now. can definitely see myself rereading this
August 17, 2026
An amusing and clever novella in the form of a diatribe from a tyrant ruler of a fictional small country in central Europe. Best read in one sitting.
July 19, 2026
Another great one from Mark Haber. Funny emperor with no clothes story - at least he had Ada.
August 24, 2026
One can’t help but think of the current occupant of the White House while reading Mark Haber’s Ada, a darkly comic novella centered on the absurd inner life of Gerard Desacroux IV. Haber creates a narrator whose grandiose self-image, profound ignorance, and inability to recognize reality make him both ridiculous and unsettling. The result is an ingenious critique of power, privilege, and the isolation and delusion that can accompany them.
The novella unfolds over only a few hours, most of them spent with Gerard pacing the “Great Room” of his castle while chaos and danger gather outside its walls. The “Sword Closet” provides another refuge, a place where Gerard can retreat from reality and indulge his sexual fantasies about Ada, a woman with whom he had a one-night stand in Paris years earlier. Gerard has transformed this fleeting encounter into an elaborate romantic mythology. He imagines Ada visiting him with her wealthy husband and fantasizes about challenging the husband to a duel for her affections. The absurdity of these fantasies is heightened by the fact that Gerard remains largely oblivious to the very real threats surrounding his castle and his fiefdom.
Gerard is a wonderfully constructed character precisely because he is so deeply flawed. He is self-absorbed, spoiled, anti-intellectual, cruel toward those weaker than himself, and almost completely divorced from reality. Yet he sees himself as a heroic and romantic figure, an aristocrat deserving of admiration and devotion. Haber repeatedly exploits the gap between Gerard’s perception of himself and the person he actually is. His aristocratic grandiosity exists alongside his base sexuality, cowardice, ignorance, and childish anxieties. That contrast is the source of much of the book’s humor.
Haber also has fun with Gerard’s ability to become distracted by trivial matters even when catastrophe seems imminent. In the midst of his panic, Gerard may suddenly launch into an extended meditation on his grandfather’s book collection or the details of defensive architecture. These digressions are funny, but they also reveal how thoroughly Gerard has constructed a private world in which his own obsessions take precedence over everything else.
The form of “Ada” is as important as its content. Haber largely abandons conventional paragraphing and employs long, winding sentences that seem to spill directly from Gerard’s consciousness onto the page. Some readers may find the unconventional grammar and lack of standard paragraph breaks unsettling, but the technique is remarkably effective. The prose mimics the rhythm of Gerard’s frantic, obsessive thinking. His endless grievances, sudden digressions, and repeated returns to the same subjects convey both his anxiety and his inability to escape himself.
Particularly effective is Gerard’s obsessive repetition of certain proper nouns and places: the Great Room, the Sword Closet, the Habsburg Inspector General, Berchtesgaden. These recurring references become verbal landmarks, just as the rooms and objects around him are physical landmarks. Gerard keeps circling back to them mentally while he literally paces the same territory in the Great Room. The structure of the prose thus mirrors the structure of his existence: he is trapped in repetitive physical and psychological loops of his own making.
Ultimately, Ada is more than an entertaining portrait of a ridiculous man. Haber uses Gerard’s absurdity to examine the corrosive effects of power and privilege. Gerard possesses the authority and resources to insulate himself from reality, but that insulation has left him isolated, frightened, sexually obsessed, and increasingly delusional. His power has not made him secure; it has allowed him to construct an elaborate fantasy in which he is always the heroic protagonist.
With its unconventional form, dark humor, and brilliantly unreliable narrator, “Ada” is an inventive exploration of what happens when enormous self-regard is combined with power and almost no capacity for self-awareness. Haber’s greatest achievement is making Gerard simultaneously hilarious and disturbing. Beneath the novella’s absurdity lies a serious warning: the accumulation of power does not necessarily enlarge a person’s understanding of the world. Sometimes it merely gives him a larger room in which to pace.
The novella unfolds over only a few hours, most of them spent with Gerard pacing the “Great Room” of his castle while chaos and danger gather outside its walls. The “Sword Closet” provides another refuge, a place where Gerard can retreat from reality and indulge his sexual fantasies about Ada, a woman with whom he had a one-night stand in Paris years earlier. Gerard has transformed this fleeting encounter into an elaborate romantic mythology. He imagines Ada visiting him with her wealthy husband and fantasizes about challenging the husband to a duel for her affections. The absurdity of these fantasies is heightened by the fact that Gerard remains largely oblivious to the very real threats surrounding his castle and his fiefdom.
Gerard is a wonderfully constructed character precisely because he is so deeply flawed. He is self-absorbed, spoiled, anti-intellectual, cruel toward those weaker than himself, and almost completely divorced from reality. Yet he sees himself as a heroic and romantic figure, an aristocrat deserving of admiration and devotion. Haber repeatedly exploits the gap between Gerard’s perception of himself and the person he actually is. His aristocratic grandiosity exists alongside his base sexuality, cowardice, ignorance, and childish anxieties. That contrast is the source of much of the book’s humor.
Haber also has fun with Gerard’s ability to become distracted by trivial matters even when catastrophe seems imminent. In the midst of his panic, Gerard may suddenly launch into an extended meditation on his grandfather’s book collection or the details of defensive architecture. These digressions are funny, but they also reveal how thoroughly Gerard has constructed a private world in which his own obsessions take precedence over everything else.
The form of “Ada” is as important as its content. Haber largely abandons conventional paragraphing and employs long, winding sentences that seem to spill directly from Gerard’s consciousness onto the page. Some readers may find the unconventional grammar and lack of standard paragraph breaks unsettling, but the technique is remarkably effective. The prose mimics the rhythm of Gerard’s frantic, obsessive thinking. His endless grievances, sudden digressions, and repeated returns to the same subjects convey both his anxiety and his inability to escape himself.
Particularly effective is Gerard’s obsessive repetition of certain proper nouns and places: the Great Room, the Sword Closet, the Habsburg Inspector General, Berchtesgaden. These recurring references become verbal landmarks, just as the rooms and objects around him are physical landmarks. Gerard keeps circling back to them mentally while he literally paces the same territory in the Great Room. The structure of the prose thus mirrors the structure of his existence: he is trapped in repetitive physical and psychological loops of his own making.
Ultimately, Ada is more than an entertaining portrait of a ridiculous man. Haber uses Gerard’s absurdity to examine the corrosive effects of power and privilege. Gerard possesses the authority and resources to insulate himself from reality, but that insulation has left him isolated, frightened, sexually obsessed, and increasingly delusional. His power has not made him secure; it has allowed him to construct an elaborate fantasy in which he is always the heroic protagonist.
With its unconventional form, dark humor, and brilliantly unreliable narrator, “Ada” is an inventive exploration of what happens when enormous self-regard is combined with power and almost no capacity for self-awareness. Haber’s greatest achievement is making Gerard simultaneously hilarious and disturbing. Beneath the novella’s absurdity lies a serious warning: the accumulation of power does not necessarily enlarge a person’s understanding of the world. Sometimes it merely gives him a larger room in which to pace.
August 8, 2026
I could’ve read this book in one sitting. It’s only 90 pages and is spun in the typical Haber narrative shape: an intense, hilarious swirling. The reason it took me two sittings to finish this was I started to think about how there are many chicken sandwiches these days. You could say Popeye’s really changed the game, upped the ante, pushed things forward in ~2019 when they unveiled their Classic Chicken Sandwich. I was in Florida at the time and I remember waiting a while in the crowded restaurant just to try it. And yes, it was very good—perhaps one of the best I had ever tried where fast food chicken sandwiches are concerned. It is obliteratingly crispy and has that typical Popeye’s panache. Its rival, the Chick-fil-a Original Chicken Sandwich, lacks the crispiness but sustains an eater’s interest by being minimalist, not doing too much, and in doing so, satisfies an eater. I’m not here to convince anyone of either—to do so in the realm of food is foolish. Taste often gets mentioned in conversations of Art and Literature, but it is the undeniable factor in the realm of food, where mood truly reigns. Because the truth is, an audience can be trained to have “good taste” in Art and Literature. There are in fact objective truths to what constitutes Good Taste and Bad Taste, whether the reader or audience wishes to acknowledge them or not. But with food one can’t be so provincial. Sure, you could say this food is better for you than this one, but that’s not accounting for Taste. You can set the table for an eater with the finest foie gras, beef wellington, truffle risotto, and saffron and seaweed espumas, but the eater has to have a taste for it all. Sometimes all one wants is an Original Chicken Sandwich because that is the thing that unvexes the Spirit, elevates one past the Sublime, and solves the problem of Being Alive. For me, I go back to Burger King’s Original Chicken Sandwich. You’ve seen it. An oddly oblong-shaped sandwich usually slathered in an immodest dose of mayo and chopped lettuce. The submarine style roll incomprehensibly seeded. Is it the best chicken sandwich out there? Probably not. But is it my favorite? Probably yes. Recently I noticed Burger King, like any corporate entity focused on squeezing out any last drop of innovation and “idea” out of a product for financial gain, has offered new variances on the Original Chicken Sandwich. Ridiculous versions like the Loaded Jalapeno and something mysteriously just called the Club. What’s the point? Especially when you have the one good thing already? Don’t seek the treasure. The Holy Grail is already in your hand. But of course, I’m speaking from a place of Taste. You who are reading this might think the thought of a Loaded Jalapeno Chicken Sandwich from Burger King is what you’ve been waiting for all your life. You can’t wait to try it. It will be the most delicious thing you’ve ever tasted. And I think you’re insane for thinking that.
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.
September 8, 2026
2.75
One of my most anticipated books of the year-so rather sad to say that I don't think this really lived up to expectation. I was expecting a deep dive within the adled mind of a complex ruler, which I suppose on a base level this was. I was also expecting the novel to be heavily reflective, and not have a plot as such but be more of a stream of conciousness- which it also was. Though neither element was really executed in the way I wanted them to be. Where my main issues lie, is that it unfortunately just was not as engaging a read as I wanted or expected. There was a lot of repeation, which I understand was purposeful and indicative of this rulers pacing while thinking, but I found it became quickly grating when the same phrase was repeated in numberous different ways 6 or so times on one page. There was also a significant lack of puncutation, which again I suspect was stylistic, but actually just made a short book a bit difficult to read. There were elements I thought were well done- the juxaposition between how the main character views the world and the people around him vs the way they actually are. As well as the way he almost stumbles within his lamenting, in to the realisation that he and his father were tyrants; who consistently chose ego and shows of violence above all else-and that perhaps that is why everything is terrible and everyone wants to kill them. Only to then immediately backtrack and do or think another awful thing. I wanted more of that I think. But it just didn't feel like there was enough of that analysis throughout for me. It also wasn't quite oblivious enough to be funny- like in 'Stalker' for example. Overall I think I just wanted a bit more from this sadly.
One of my most anticipated books of the year-so rather sad to say that I don't think this really lived up to expectation. I was expecting a deep dive within the adled mind of a complex ruler, which I suppose on a base level this was. I was also expecting the novel to be heavily reflective, and not have a plot as such but be more of a stream of conciousness- which it also was. Though neither element was really executed in the way I wanted them to be. Where my main issues lie, is that it unfortunately just was not as engaging a read as I wanted or expected. There was a lot of repeation, which I understand was purposeful and indicative of this rulers pacing while thinking, but I found it became quickly grating when the same phrase was repeated in numberous different ways 6 or so times on one page. There was also a significant lack of puncutation, which again I suspect was stylistic, but actually just made a short book a bit difficult to read. There were elements I thought were well done- the juxaposition between how the main character views the world and the people around him vs the way they actually are. As well as the way he almost stumbles within his lamenting, in to the realisation that he and his father were tyrants; who consistently chose ego and shows of violence above all else-and that perhaps that is why everything is terrible and everyone wants to kill them. Only to then immediately backtrack and do or think another awful thing. I wanted more of that I think. But it just didn't feel like there was enough of that analysis throughout for me. It also wasn't quite oblivious enough to be funny- like in 'Stalker' for example. Overall I think I just wanted a bit more from this sadly.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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.
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