Dr Tod. T. Friendly is living his life in reverse. He wakes on his hospital deathbed and staggers back to a quiet home in suburban America. Growing younger as the years pass, he dumps his lovers before seducing them and mangles his patients before sending them home. The arrow of time has turned backward, and Friendly’s reincarnated consciousness, remembering nothing of its past life, struggles to understand a world where violence heals and pain causes love.

The rewinding clock at last delivers Friendly back to the boat on which he fled from a war-torn Europe. Amis brings the steeliest nerve to the job of realizing the novel’s inevitable logic: trapped in his body from grave to cradle, Friendly’s consciousness can only watch as he struggles to make sense of the doctor’s most ambitious project yet—the final solution.

A Macmillan Audio production.