Double Or Nothing

Double or Nothing is a concrete novel – one in which the words become physical materials on the page. Federman gives each page a shape: makes it into a picture. The words move, cluster, jostle and collide in a tour de force full of puns, parodies and imitations. Within these startling and playful structures Federman develops two characters and two narratives. The first of these deals with the narrator and his effort to make the book; the second deals with the story that the narrator intends to tell: the story of a young man’s arrival in America from post-war Europe. The character of the young man clearly emerges from his obsessions; madly transfixing details – noodles, toothpaste, a first subway ride, a sock full of dollars – become milestones in the young man’s discovery of America. These details, combined with the desperation of the characters, create a book that is at the same time hilarious and frightening.

Double or Nothing, a classic of innovative fiction, challenges not only the way that we read fiction, but the way that we see words. The original edition of Double or Nothing won the Frances Steloff Fiction Prize and the Panache Experimental Fiction Prize; the German translation won two literary prizes.