Villa Incognito

An “impossibly imaginative” (Vanity Fair) novel of “brilliantly offbeat satire” (Atlanta Journal-Constitution) from the New York Times bestselling author of Still Life with Woodpecker

“Bursts with energy . . . Those who cherish [Robbins’s] gift for metaphor, simile, and verbal riffs will revel in their plentitude here.”—Entertainment Weekly

Imagine there are American MIAs who chose to remain missing after the Vietnam War. Imagine a family in which four generations of strong, alluring women share a mysterious connection to an outlandish figure from Japanese folklore. Imagine them as part of a novel that only Tom Robbins could create—a magically crafted work as timeless as myth.

But no matter how hard you try, you’ll never imagine what you’ll find inside: a tilt-a-whirl of identity, masquerade, and disguise that dares to pull off “the false mustache of the world” and reveal the even greater mystery underneath. For neither the mists of Laos nor the Bangkok smog, neither the overcast of Seattle nor the fog of San Francisco, neither the murk of the intelligence community nor the mummery of the circus can obscure the pure linguistic phosphor that illuminates every page of Villa Incognito.

Tom Robbins has been called “a vital natural resource” by the Oregonian, “one of the wildest and most entertaining novelists in the world” by the Financial Times of London, and “the most dangerous writer in the world” by Fernanda Pivano of Italy’s Corriere della Sera. His works include Jitterbug Perfume, Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates, and Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. A Southerner by birth, Tom Robbins lived in and around Seattle from 1962 until he passed away in 2025.