In late nineteenth-century Paris, the writer Hubert is shocked to discover that Icarus, the protagonist of the new novel he s working on, has vanished. Looking for him among the manuscripts of his rivals does not solve the mystery, so a detective is hired to find the runaway character, who is now in Montparnasse, where he learns to drink absinthe and is picked up by a friendly prostitute. These hilarious adventures make Queneau s novel, presented in the form of a script and parodying various genres, one of the best literary jokes in modern literature.