Friendless and loveless, young and aimless, Lucien (Lucy) Minor is the resident odd duck in his bucolic hamlet of Bury, a weakling and compulsive liar in a town famous for producing brutish giants. When Lucy finds employment—as Undermajordomo, assisting the Majordomo of a remote, foreboding castle—he soon discovers the place harbors many dark secrets, not least of which is the whereabouts of the castle’s master, Baron Von Aux. Along the way, he encounters thieves, madmen, aristocrats, and Klara, a delicate beauty for whose love he must compete. Thus begins a tale of theft, heartbreak, mystery, and cold-blooded murder in which every aspect of humanity is laid bare for our hero to observe. Undermajordomo Minor is an adventure story, a fable without a moral, an ink-black comedy of manners, and a love story—and Lucy must be careful, for love is a violent thing. “ Undermajordomo Minor wears a fairytale cloak, but at its wondrous and fantastical heart lies an unexpectedly moving story about love, home, and the difficulty of finding one’s place in the world. Elegant, beautifully strange, and utterly superb.” - Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven “An electrifying adventure, both tender and profane. Nervy, hilarious and utterly unpredictable, Patrick deWitt has served up another dazzler.” - Maria Semple, author of Where'd You Go, Bernadette? “Patrick deWitt is masterful at crafting this oddball, adult fairy tale.” - Read It Forward “DeWitt takes on familiar tropes just to turn them on their heads, and the results are by turns funny, fascinating and often plain weird.” - NPR, Best Books of 2015 “In its quirky, melancholy charm it’s not leagues away from The Grand Budapest Hotel. (In fact Dewitt may have written the greatest Wes Anderson movie never made.)” - Time magazine, 10 Best Fiction Books of 2015 “DeWitt’s third novel breezes along in staccato chapters, a mix of dark comedy and twee world-building that reads like Roald Dahl for the Wes Anderson generation.” - San Francisco Chronicle, 100 Best Books of 2015 “A deliciously off-kilter coming-of-age story…Take special note of this delightful, wickedly sharp gem” - Shelf Awareness “This kinda-sorta fairytale has humor and quirky, undeniable charm… The story is surprisingly straightforward and unadorned, though the prose oozes with that odd DeWitt charm that makes it compelling.” - Washington Independent Review of Books “Compulsively readable sentences, oscillating between the prosaic and the lyrical, the modern and the arcane…” - San Francisco Chronicle “This novel is compulsively readable. DeWitt’s facility with point of view and narrative style is astounding … Undermajordomo Minor has been engineered by a master craftsman. The pacing is superb and, as I read, I kept thinking how grateful I am to writers who can make me laugh.” - Boston Globe “Relentlessly wry and often outrageously funny … In Undermajordomo Minor , deWitt has somehow created a fable in which the comic narrative voice is impossibly accomplished, and nearly every word is funny… a gut-busting and satisfying tale.” - Paste “A fun, galloping read that’s appealingly silly at times and fully engrossing at others.” - Stranger “[In Undermajordomo Minor ], geography and era are purposely abstracted. Where we are, when we are, or why we’re there are all afterthoughts. What matters is Mr. deWitt’s imagination, which is a forceful train that ignores the usual tracks.” - New York Times “[A] charming vision of a Never-Never Land for adults. It’s an entertaining read, complete with its own implication that distraction from the mundane travails of life is sometimes exactly what one needs.” - Dallas Morning News “Undermajordomo Minor” not only salutes the literature of a bygone era but fully inhabits it, and the result is a novel that offers the same delights as the fair talks and adventure stories it takes on.”” - New York Times Book Review “’I don’t subscribe to amusements, Lucy. Laughter is the basest sound a body can make, in my opinion,’ says the valet…. As I read the book, I more than once made the sound the valet finds so base and unpleasant.” - Wall Street Journal “Compulsively readable sentences, oscillating between the prosaic and the lyrical, the modern and the arcane…Told by an omniscient narrator, Undermajordomo Minor breezes along in staccato chapters, most no more than a few pages long, a mix of dark comedy and twee world-building that reads like Roald Dahl for the Wes Anderson generation, populated by deWitt’s signature menagerie of strange and unsavory folk…Madcap dialogue unfolds like a fencing match, acts of cruelty are dovetailed by tenderness, and backstories of murder, revenge and lost love are nested within Lucy’s quest, giving the world texture while amplifying the story’s themes of love and longing.” - San Francisco Chronicle “Throughout the novel, [deWitt] seeks to play against our expectations, to take the moral lessons inherent in his