The Messiah of Stockholm by Cynthia Ozick (1987). In this novel from Ozick’s mystical period, Lars Andemening, a mousy, fortyish book reviewer for a Swedish daily, has a grandiose fantasy: that he is the son of Bruno Schulz, a Polish writer murdered during World War II by a Nazi officer. But when a woman turns up in Stockholm also claiming to be Schulz’s child and with a copy of Schulz’s long-lost novel The Messiah, Lars’s quest to learn about Schulz turns Oedipal.
Total Points: 7 (TCB 7)