According to his contract, the old man has five months to sit on his bench and reminisce about his childhood, but all that comes out are curious stories-about leprous dominos, amorous concrete towers, chaste call girls, and more. In other words: the old man twaddles on and on. A virtuoso novel that reveals what language can do when it serves no purpose but its own proliferation, Swiss provocateur Urs Alleman's "The Old Man and the Bench" is a comedy of mangled verbosity. | Old Man and the Bench by Urs Allemann, Paperback | Indigo Chapters