The Desolate

“Philosophy might be best described as the attempt to say something about everything. Yet, the more abstract and systematic one’s philosophy is, the less it says about anything real. Recognizing that the only way to speak truth is to say something about someone, DeLay has given us a book as profound as it is engaging. Everything is that rare kind of work that shows us what’s essential by showing us what’s personal. A tremendous achievement, this work will be read for years to come.”


—Matthew Clemente, author of Eros Crucified





“There is no greater compliment one can give a work of fiction than to say that its author has created a world one would like to visit. DeLay has done something more than that. In depicting an individual character’s search for meaning in the face of a world that often appears cruel and chaotic, he has taken up Camus’s challenge to present philosophy in images and expanded upon it, showing us our world with all of its absurdity and grace.”


—Jean-Luc Beauchard, author of The Mask of Memnon: Meaning and the Novel