Perhaps we can imagine that Patrick DeWitt shares a strange kinship with William Goldman. Goldman followed an Academy Award–winning Western screenplay (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) with a much-beloved fantasy (The Princess Bride). DeWitt has followed his own award-winning Western novel (The Sisters Brothers) with a fairytale-esque book whose economic prose sparkles with wit and humour, leading some early readers to make the comparison to Goldman’s own tale of castle-centric heroics.

Undermajordomo Minor (House of Anansi) tells the story of Lucy, a young man plucked from a boring life of posturing with a pipe to an appointment in a castle surrounded by a mysterious war and roamed by a mysterious lunatic. The plot moves at a clip, which suits the nature of the jokes—they sneak up on you in the best way. The intelligence of the language is the standout in a book with much ...