Spanning the period between the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 and the years just after World War I, this novel moves from the labor troubles in Colorado to turn-of-the-century New York, to London and Gottingen, Venice and Vienna, the Balkans, Central Asia, and Siberia at the time of the mysterious Tunguska Event. It also covers Mexico during the Revolution, postwar Paris, silent-era Hollywood, and one or two places not strictly speaking on the map at all.

With a worldwide disaster looming just a few years ahead, it is a time of unrestrained corporate greed, false religiosity, and evil intent in high places. The sizable cast of characters includes anarchists, balloonists, gamblers, corporate tycoons, drug enthusiasts, innocents and decadents, mathematicians, mad scientists, shamans, psychics, stage magicians, spies, detectives, adventuresses, and hired guns. There are cameo appearances by historical figures such as Nikola Tesla, Bela Lugosi, and Groucho Marx.

As an era of certainty comes crashing down around their ears and an unpredictable future commences, these folks are mostly just trying to pursue their lives. Sometimes they manage to catch up; sometimes it's their lives that pursue them.

"The Moustache" is a remarkably intriguing novel that begins with what seems to be a trivial joke. The protagonist whimsically decides to shave off his moustache, intending to surprise his wife. However, this simple act spirals into a bizarre nightmare.

To his shock, everyone around him, including his wife, insists that he never had a moustache. This leads him into a world where the line between reality and imagination becomes increasingly blurred. Is he losing his mind, or is he caught in a monstrous conspiracy orchestrated by those closest to him?

In a desperate bid for sanity, he attempts to escape, but will running away provide the answers he seeks, or is it merely the point of no return? This novel will leave readers pondering the fine line between sanity and madness.

Death on the Installment Plan is the compelling story of young Ferdinand's first 18 years. His life unfolds amidst the grinding struggle of small shopkeepers to survive, filled with childhood sensations and fantasies that are lusty, scatological, violent, yet also imbued with poetry.

Ferdinand battles with his ineffectual insurance clerk father and his mother, who whines around the junkshop she runs for his benefit. He briefly attends the superbly funny Meanwell College in England, a Dickensian nightmare institution.

Humiliation, failure, and boredom are constants until Ferdinand teams up with the "scientist" des Pereires—an inventor, con-man, incorrigible optimist—whose last project is to grow enormous potatoes by electricity. Des Pereires proves to be one of the most lovable charlatans in French literature.

This novel mixes unmitigated despair with Gargantuan comedy, creating a style where invective and obscenity are laced with unforgettable poetry. Céline's influence has revolutionized the contemporary approach to fiction, making this work a forerunner of today’s "black comedy."