Loren Ipsum

by Andrew Gallix

VIVE LA RÉSISTANCE!

Writers are being murdered. Heads are rolling; victims tarred and feathered. The French literary world lives in fear of the next attack. A nihilistic terrorist group takes responsibility, but their objective remains obscure.

Loren Ipsum is an English journalist, who moves to Paris to research a monograph on an underground writer called Adam Wandle. The terrorists’ slogans are all culled from his works. Has Adam been co-opted as their guru, or is he actually their éminence grise? And what of Loren Ipsum herself? Will they ever be able to leave the 21st century and make it to the mythical Blue Island?

Set on the Riviera and in Paris, Loren Ipsum is a darkly comic satirical novel. A famous author is expropriated from her beautiful garden, which is turned into a commune. The severed head of a British novelist residing in Paris is discovered in a box. A Scandinavian playwright’s ponytail is cut off on the streets of the Left Bank. A mermaid blows up a yacht where a sparkling literary party is in full swing…

Genres: Literature, Fiction

330 pages, Paperback

Published September 11, 2025

About the author

Andrew Gallix teaches at the Sorbonne and edits 3:AM Magazine. His work has appeared in publications ranging from The Guardian and Times Literary Supplement to Dazed & Confused.

He divides his time between Scylla and Charybdis.

Reviews

[Paul Dembina · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh dear oh dear. That's the last time I trust a glowing review from The Guardian.

Tedious posturing and masses of pretentious quotations.

[Marc Nash · Rating 3 out of 5]

Video review https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zPD2...

[Lorenza Barone · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book annoyed me. I really wanted to like it and tried to push through the first few chapters, but I barely had any idea what was going on. The two-star rating reflects how I felt by the point I reached, so best of luck to anyone who makes it further than I did. It’s one of those books that leaves you wondering whether you’re not smart enough to get it, or whether the writing is just trying a little too hard to be clever.

[Jack Milton · Rating 1 out of 5]

Unreadable.

[Jay Green · Rating 3 out of 5]

An amusing, playful, erudite novel in the same vein as Vernon Subutex and The Seventh Function of Language. Lots of sub-Joycean wordplay, as well as an ocean (Océane?) of metaphors and references in search of a coastline to provide some form and narrative structure. There is a plot in there somewhere but I wouldn’t worry about it too much: The set-pieces provide the fun.

[Stephen Hull · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another book that I really wanted to like but never warmed to. It’s full (and I mean FULL) of word games, puns and linguistic jokes (cf. the name of the eponymous protagonist). But there’s so much of it, you feel that the author was more concerned with showing you how clever they are that actually entertaining you with a good story. Still, I enjoyed the humour in it own right. My favourite was referring to a particularly dilapidated Fiat 500 as a “quattrocento Cinquecento”. OK, I guess you had to be there…

[Gianni Molossi · Rating 1 out of 5]

Look, I'm all about non-linear fiction; I'm a sucker for dream logic; and I pilfer through Dennis Cooper's end-of-year lists of faves as much as the next guy. This, however, is just drivel. It's so crammed you fool yourself into believing it's actually doing something - but it's not, it just runs out of nick-nacks at some point.