Zentner's tale of a man who pauses to take stock of his life after spending it fleeing from emotional attachments reads like a heady mashup of Kazuo Ishiguro and Thomas Mann. But it's Mattotti's breathtakingly vivid paintings, pulsating with the mysterious poetry of unsettling dreams, that add a welcome and indelible splash of Kafka and Murakami.

Under Mattotti's brush, images and emotions swirl together: The sound of a woman's voice making plans for the future becomes sinister