Introduction by John Sturrock. Foreword by Raymond Queneau.

From Publishers Weekly

The last novel Vian completed before his death in 1959, this whimsical, absurdist sendup of human foible takes place in a village where old people are auctioned off like slaves, villagers stone the vicar to produce rain and stallions are crucified for "falling into sin." The novel opens with willful Clementine deep in the throes of labor and furious about it. With her husband, Angel, locked in his room (from the outside), Clementine is rescued by Timortis, a traveling psychoanalyst, who helps her deliver triplets. Timortis befriends the browbeaten Angel (Clementine vows never to have sex with him again) and decides to stay on at the house. As a stranger to the country, he provides a window onto its bizarre customs-it is possible to pay someone to take on another person's shame, for example-even as he trolls the village looking for people to psychoanalyze. As the "heartsnatcher" of the title, Timortis has no feelings or desires of his own and embarks on a futile, hysterical quest for patients so he can "steal their feelings." His sole subject is a maid who thinks psychoanalysis is a euphemism for sex; she's happy to take off her clothes, but she refuses to talk about her feelings. The episodic, meandering narrative wanders from incident to incident, until Angel leaves Clementine, and she takes up child-rearing with unbridled abandon. Vian's sharp, playful humor makes for an entertaining read, although there are extended flat stretches. While the allegorical conceits may be something of an acquired taste, Vian's prose is surprisingly accessible, and his fascinating take on the strange logic of human cruelty and inconsistency makes this a worthwhile read.

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From Booklist

This, Vian's last novel before his 1959 death, is a work to be reckoned with. Told from the perspective of an unexamined self-appointed psychiatrist named Timortis, its focus is on Clementine, an increasingly overprotective mother to triplets who come to represent all that is terrifying, delightful, surprising, and confusing about not only children but also humanity. Beginning with her miserable pregnancy and extending through their infancy and toddlerhood, Clementine grows more consumed with her three sons' safety every day. Her need for their world to be completely controlled drives her husband away and eventually drives her to the edge. Timortis, seeking to understand the desires and dreams of all mankind, affably goes along with her schemes, all the while unable to develop his own sense of self. He is subsumed by the backdrop of the novel, a deeply disturbing small town that, among other things, officially heaps all its collective guilt on a designated town scapegoat, auctions its elderly for the amusement of the wealthy, and works its young apprentices literally to death. One would hardly imagine that there is much to laugh at in such a tale, but, strangely, there is. This is a puzzler and a riddle but, every so often, a tickler as well. Debi Lewis

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