A monument to sloth, rant and contempt, a behemoth of fat, flatulence and furious suspicion of anything modern - this is Ignatius J. Reilly of New Orleans, noble crusader against a world of dunces. In magnificent revolt against the twentieth century, Ignatius propels his monstrous bulk among the flesh-pots of a fallen city, filling his Big Chief tablets with invective, until his maroon-haired mother decrees that Ignatius must go to work.

'When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him' Jonathan Swift

'A masterwork of comedy. A dozen characters bounce off each other, physically and verbally, through a plot of such disarming inventiveness that it seems to generate itself effortlessly. A pungent work of slapstick, satire and intellectual incongruities. It is nothing less than a grand comic fugue' The New York Times

'Witty, exuberant and addictive, a mocking eulogy of life in New Orleans by a modern Rabelais' The Times