This collection of stories presents a singular vision and a unified theme, one which is essentially obsessed with graphomania as an existential response to life. Most of the work is dark, concerned chiefly with political prisoners, condemned terrorists, madness, the aforementioned graphomania, and suicide/death. There are hints of a charred humor throughout, and the one interlude ("Acknowledgements"), although short-lived, pokes good fun at the pomposity of the authorial act through a series of increasingly arcane and absurd fake acknowledgements. But even that one ends in horror. This is not a cheery view of the world, but it's a fully developed one. While Volodine's themes and tone are not the same as Kafka's, the unrelenting monomania of his approach brings that great writer to mind. I was glad I read this short book for some of the beautiful writing and to dip my toe in the post-exotic worldview, although I ultimately found myself unconvinced, or perhaps simply unwilling to enter into it fully.