The Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander

A ship is sinking in the Atlantic. The lifeboats are overcrowded. One strange, calm passenger named Crowder convinces our unnamed narrator to stay aboard the sinking vessel rather than risk a cramped lifeboat. As the ship goes down, Crowder begins to talk, and doesn't stop for the rest of the book. He claims to be the Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander, that legendary figure from Eastern tradition sometimes conflated with Alexander the Great. He has, he insists, lived for millennia. He knew Abraham personally. He counseled Solomon. He discovered the Fountain of Immortality and has watched empires rise and crumble from inside them. What follows is a sprawling, digressive yarn, part picaresque adventure, part philosophical meditation on what it would mean to outlive everyone you love, again and again. Stockton, the master who gave us "The Lady, or the Tiger?", constructs a narrator who never quite believes Crowder but cannot stop listening. The novel asks a deceptively simple question: if you could live forever, would you want to? And what would happen to your memory, your identity, your grip on truth, after a few thousand years?