I tried two permutations of the story: in the first, “I” remained in New York, feeling cut off and strangely marooned, before engaging in misguided experiments with a mystical mirror, an event that rapidly ended in a surreal and opaque fairy tale ending. But perhaps it was also let down by the translation, and in parts it was definitely badly edited.

Perhaps the book itself is supposed to be a meditation on the limits and powers of narrative. However, the story that I found myself embarking on was frustratingly incoherent. An intelligent, adult take on a genre for which I held much childhood affection was a tantalising prospect. What follows is reminiscent of a choose-your-own-adventure book from the 1980s. Referred throughout as “you”, she finds herself in a cab, on the way to the airport, with a ticket for Berlin. Unexpectedly, she summons a demon (her “ lusty Lucifer“), has wild sex with him, and subsequently enters into a sort of Faustian pact, which allows her to travel throughout the world … though at what price?īequeathed a pair of Wizard of Oz style red shoes (the Demon Lover informs her that “ Their owner is a witch, but she is long dead … I warn you, these shoes are cursed“), our heroine is mysteriously transported to New York. EpsteinĪ bored 20-something English teacher in Jakarta, a “ city of thwarted suicidal urges“, longs for adventure far away.

Translated from the Indonesian by Stephen J.

The Wandering by Intan Paramaditha