Title: The Teleportation Accident
Author: Ned Beauman
Genre: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Historical, Contemporary, Humor, Literary Fiction
Publisher: Sceptre
Published: July 19, 2012
Page Amount: 357 pages
Blurb From Goodreads: When you haven’t had sex in a long time, it feels like the worst thing that is happening to anyone anywhere. If you’re living in Germany in the 1930s, it probably isn’t. But that’s no consolation to Egon Loeser, whose carnal misfortunes will push him from the experimental theatres of Berlin to the absinthe bars of Paris to the physics laboratories of Los Angeles, trying all the while to solve two mysteries: whether it was really a deal with Satan that claimed the life of his hero, the great Renaissance stage designer Adriano Lavicini; and why a handsome, clever, charming, modest guy like him can’t, just once in a while, get himself laid. From the author of the acclaimed Boxer, Beetle comes a historical novel that doesn’t know what year it is; a noir novel that turns all the lights on; a romance novel that arrives drunk to dinner; a science fiction novel that can’t remember what ‘isotope’ means; a stunningly inventive, exceptionally funny, dangerously unsteady and (largely) coherent novel about sex, violence, space, time, and how the best way to deal with history is to ignore it.
Why Read: Again, this book just happened to be in TBR and caught my eye when I was going through some new potential books to read. I am honestly so pleased that I grabbed this book for my audio book pleasure. I laughed my way through three or four days of work – and my quality of work may have lapsed… but I don’t mind.
Review: If there is one word I could choose for this book, I would choose absurdism and I don’t even know if that’s a real word I could use. I’m almost at a loss when it comes to reviewing this book because it was so incredibly absurd. The main character, Egon Loeser, is a total weirdo, and just wants to do cocaine all the time (oh and have sex with Adele Hitler). The whole book is this confusing ride of people fooling around, and while reading – you almost forget that it’s the 1930s in Germany. Egon just ignores all the signs, goes to Paris to pretend to be a doctor, and then goes to Los Angeles. Somehow he gets involved in a Communist scheme to find out if a teleportation device is real and developed by the Americans.
Character-wise, this book is amazing. The books are at once both very superficial and hilariously real. Sometimes I found myself thinking Egon had a soul, and really was just normal until he just opened his big mouth and would say something like, “I’d be happy to help you if you gave me some of that excellent cocaine.” Whoever was reading his voice has the best talent because it was incredible.
I did lose control of the plot from time to time, and couldn’t remember exactly what year it was or why Egon as where he was. Somehow that didn’t seem to matter. If I tuned out for a moment to actually focus on my work, I would lose a couple seconds of work- but then getting back into the plot was like sliding into a lukewarm pool. I’m still not entirely sure how Egon found himself in LA or how he ended the story in…, well I won’t spoil it, but you’ll see what I mean.
It’s just an absolutely incredibly written hilarious book. Everything about it is laugh-out-loud funny, and I’d recommend it for anyone looking for a ridiculous take on history (which should be everyone).
Rating: 5/5 Stars
Positively Gabriella 
This sounds like fun – I wonder would it read as well as it seems to be to listen to.
Hmm I hope so!