A unnamed narrator, beset by nervous ailments, is again the readers' guide on a hair-raising journey through the past and across Europe, amid the restless literary ghosts of Kafka, Stendhal, and Casanova. Now in paperback, "Vertigo" is the marvelous first novel of W.G. Sebald, the acclaimed European writer.

Perfectly titled, Vertigo --W.G. Sebald's marvelous first novel -- is a work that teeters on the edge: compelling, puzzling, and deeply unsettling.

An unnamed narrator, beset by nervous ailments, journeys accross Europe to Vienna, Venice, Verona, Riva, and finally to his childhood home in a small Bavarian village. He is also journeying into the past. Traveling in the footsteps of Stendhal, Casanova, and Kafka, the narrator draws the reader, line by line, into a dizzying web of history, biography, legends, literature, and -- most perilously -- memories.