John Marmysz - Following the death of his mother and the increasingly bizarre deaths of his closest friends, the nameless main character is afflicted with a mysterious malady that forces him to confront the absurdity of his own meaningless existence

John Marmysz, The Nihilist, No Frills Buffalo, 2015.


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It seems so important as you do what you do, But in times to come no one remembers you.
Your actions are forgotten and your feelings destroyed.
You've become one with the nihilist void.

Inspired by real-life events, as well as by classic philosophical novels such as Jean-Paul Sartre's Nausea, Albert Camus' The Stranger, Yukio Mishima’s Confessions of a Mask, and Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club, The Nihilist tells the story of a philosophy professor caught in the grips of nihilistic despair. Following the death of his mother and the increasingly bizarre deaths of his closest friends, the nameless main character is afflicted with a mysterious malady that forces him to confront the absurdity of his own meaningless existence.
Brain parasites, scatological dreams, punk rock, and spontaneous human combustion appear alongside the ideas of Heraclitus, Socrates, Diogenes, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Heidegger. The result is a wryly humorous philosophical allegory of hopelessness and resignation in the face of the void.




"Marmysz has crafted a 21st Century philosophical novel, complete with narrative hints from Dostoevsky and Kafka, Sartre and Camus. His simple, straightforward style is clear and accessible with just enough punk rock, rebellion and violence mixed in to keep the interest of today's reader." - Jason McQuinn               

"Kafkaesque! Delves into subjects nobody usually wants to go into: death, vomiting, rectal exams, disease, meaninglessness. Scary, sad and true. It's a work of art." - Christopher Anderson




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