Now in paperback comes the newest bestseller by the author of "Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas" and "Skinny Legs and All". Robbins explores, challenges, mocks, and celebrates virtually every major aspect of our contemporary era as he brings onstage the most complex and compelling character he's ever created.
Paperback
PRODUCT INFORMATION
Summary
Now in paperback comes the newest bestseller by the author of "Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas" and "Skinny Legs and All". Robbins explores, challenges, mocks, and celebrates virtually every major aspect of our contemporary era as he brings onstage the most complex and compelling character he's ever created.
Description
A “deranged and delightful concoction” (Fortune) about a CIA agent with uniquely peculiar proclivities, from the New York Times bestselling author of Still Life with Woodpecker
“Clever, creative, and witty, Robbins tosses off impassioned observations like handfuls of flower petals.”—The San Diego Union-Tribune
Switters is a contradiction for all seasons: an anarchist who works for the government; a pacifist who carries a gun; a vegetarian who sops up ham gravy; a cyberwhiz who hates computers; a man who, though obsessed with the preservation of innocence, is aching to deflower his high-school-age stepsister (only to become equally enamored of a nun ten years his senior).
Yet there is nothing remotely wishy-washy about Switters. He doesn’t merely pack a pistol. He is a pistol. And as we dog Switters’s strangely elevated heels across four continents, in and out of love and danger, discovering in the process the “true” Third Secret of Fatima, we experience Tom Robbins—that fearless storyteller, spiritual renegade, and verbal break dancer—at the top of his game. On one level this is a fast-paced CIA adventure story with comic overtones; on another it’s a serious novel of ideas that brings the Big Picture into unexpected focus; but perhaps more than anything else, Fierce Invalids is a sexy celebration of language and life.
Critic Reviews
“"Superb." --New York Post "As clever and witty a novel as anyone has written in a long time ... The plot is sustained by [Robbins's] usual virtuoso writing and brilliant flashes of insight. ... Robbins takes readers on a wild, delightful ride. ... A delight from beginning to end." --Buffalo News "Dangerous? Wicked? Forbidden? You bet. ... Pour yourself a bowl of chips and dig in." --Daily News, New York "Robbins is a great writer ... and definitely a provocative rascal." --The Tennessean "Whoever said truth is stranger than fiction never read a Tom Robbins novel. ... Clever, creative, and witty, Robbins tosses off impassioned observations like handfuls of flower petals." --The San Diego Union-Tribune”
Praise for Tom Robbins and Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates
“Superb.”—New York Post
“Dangerous? Wicked? Forbidden? You bet. . . . Pour yourself a bowl of chips and dig in.”—Daily News, New York
“Robbins is a great writer . . . and definitely a provocative rascal.”—The Tennessean
“Robbins proves again that he can tell a wicked tale . . . [He] has created a spokesman for a world order where the enlightened individual once again reigns. At least individuals who can handle it.”—Kansas City Star
“Like any Robbins tale, it’s deceptively funny yet dead serious in its confrontation with Big Issues: the nature of God and Satan; the hypocrisy of organized religions; the insidious evils of government, big business, and advertising; liberalism vs. conservatism; the condition of humanity in an inhumane world.”—The Sacramento Bee
“For fans of Robbins’s nonlinear playfulness, this story of a CIA agent hooked on sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll offers plenty of abandon and unexpected rewards.”—San Francisco Chronicle
“[Robbins] takes us on his typical rowdy and irreverent ride, surprising us both with the story he tells and with the way he tells it . . . may be Robbins’s best work to date.”—The Richmond Times Dispatch
“Robbins is still the Houdini of unchained similes and metaphors.”—Detroit Free Press
“Ingenious . . . Tom Robbins writes operas chock full of mind-altering images and calls them novels . . . Fans like him for going all-out cosmic, for twisting what seem like unlikely words into brilliant Mobius strips of humor and beauty.”—The Seattle Times
“[Robbins] has written a new novel that pops like a dogwood in springtime . . . it will do everything to delight those who realize they need a jolt from his cosmic jumper cables every so often.”—Philadelphia News
“The father (in this century) of all nose-thumbers . . . [Robbins] is also the inspiration for disreputable treaders of the line between thriller and literature.”—Los Angeles Times
“Robbins balances the comic and the cosmic much as a juggler might balance a kitchen chair on a spoon. Highly recommended.”—Library Journal
“[Robbins] brews another deranged and delightful concoction about a man who does it all for God, country, and the love of women.”—Fortune
“Philosophical screwball comedy.”—People
“Full of little wisdoms, Invalids is the literary equivalent of whitewater-rafting the rapids of Africa’s Zambezi River with the Marx Brothers in tow.”—Entertainment Weekly
“One of the most inventive writers on the planet.”—The Dallas Morning News
“No one writes like Robbins . . . When you look closely at his work, there are virtually no throwaway lines— they seem crafted.”—Tracy Johnson, Salon
About the Author
Tom Robbins has been called “a vital natural resource” by the Oregonian, “one of the wildest and most entertaining novelists in the world” by the Financial Times of London, and “the most dangerous writer in the world” by Fernanda Pivano of Italy’s Corriere della Sera. His works include Jitterbug Perfume, Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates, and Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. A Southerner by birth, Tom Robbins lived in and around Seattle from 1962 until he passed away in 2025.
Product Details
Returns
This item is eligible for free returns within 30 days of delivery. See our returns policy for further details.
