Scrounged from his notebooks and hearsay, this is the story of a schoolteacher named Konrad Z ndel: a philosopher, a wanna-be writer; scattered, self-conscious, glum, anxious, unlucky, discontent...At the end of his rope, he decides to flee his workaday life at all costs, only to find escape always a little beyond his reach. First his tooth falls out in the sight of other travelers, then he finds a severed finger in a restroom on a train. In fact, Z ndel seems on the verge of falling to bits, as do his words, thoughts, wife, and world--will there be anything left, and anyone to hold the pieces? Z ndel's Exit is a Chaplinesque comedy of disintegration, never knowing if it's coming or going.