When Alexander receives a cryptic letter inviting him to attend an unspecified course of instruction, he feels somehow compelled to go. From that moment on, his world will change, and all of his former certainties will be called into question. When he arrives at the institution in the small provincial town, no one is able – or willing – to tell him anything about the course, and life there seems slightly out of focus and eerily ambiguous. As Alexander struggles to understand the strange situation in which he has landed, he gradually finds himself caught in a bizarre and surreal nightmare from which there may be no escape . . .

The follow-up to David Wheldon's (1950-2021) award-winning cult classic The Viaduct (1983), The Course of Instruction (1984) is a haunting and compelling novel in the vein of Franz Kafka, Dino Buzzati, and Samuel Beckett. This new edition includes an introduction by Aiden O'Reilly.