Traitor Comet is a novel about a man who cannot see inside himself anymore. Since Geoffrey Wilhelm Weidmann is his only true witness, he cannot understand himself and needs to seek out those who can help him gain insight. In his past, Geoff had been a roughneck, a student of the violin, a World War I combat veteran - a self-made man in an era of post war liberation.

Geoff had a bad dream on his last night in an old farm house in the Austrian countryside, formerly owned by his father. He had isolated himself and his wife in an attempt to gain some peace of mind and find something of value. Geoff’s father had moved to Paris with Goeff’s brother Franz and family. Until now, Geoff had rejected city life and his family seeking self-understanding in a subsistence life.

The dream was an excruciatingly frightening experience about the discovery of a dead man in his bed. Geoff believed that he may have killed this individual who now was rotting in his bed. He, escaped the farm and traveled to Paris to live in Franz’s home.

Walking the streets of Paris and visiting cafes, Geoff met many free-thinking artistic personalities Including the leader of the surrealist art movement Andre Breton, a surrealist poet, Robert Desnos , and a stage actor with surrealist playwright intentions Antonin Artaud, poet, dramatist, and play director.

Geoff is stiff and anxious when he arrives in Paris but soon is accepted by the unusual characters in and around surrealist circles. Geoff is liked immediately even though he doesn't like himself at this point. The surrealists recognize something in the sensitive, confused man.

As Geoff becomes freer with his own thoughts and writes poetry relying less on language that is governed by literary rules and more on free expression of words that evoke unconscious experiences, he is more accepted and influenced by the two surrealist freethinkers Bresnos and Artaud who have gone beyond Breton’s restrictions presented in his famous surrealist manifesto.

At this point in the novel, Personne began to evoke many experiences in me that were beyond surreal by describing the adventures, social interactions, and artistic presentations of the bohemian characters.

Traitor Comet is a very good novel, and I look forward to reading, The Starfish, book 2 of a continuing series. ( )