Saint Sebastian's Abyss opens with its unnamed narrator en route to Berlin to be by his former friend Schmidt’s deathbed. The two, as art critics, had their bond solidified by their mutual obsession with Saint Sebastian’s Abyss, a painting by forgotten eccentric artist Count Hugo Backenbauer.

The flight to Berlin was tranquil, preparing me, it seemed, for the turbulent meeting ahead, the reunion with my dearest friend, now a rival or an antagonist or, who knows, perhaps an enemy, a man whose lungs had plagued him his entire adult life and whose very coughs, like premonitions, echoed in my ears.

The book shines in its satirical take on the culture of art criticism, tapping into the snobbery, elitism, and pretentiousness that almost seems inherent to the business. It’s almost like Mark Haber took every trait, mannerism, and vocalized opinion people reserve for art critics, put them in a blender, and slathered, generously, their thick, liquid remains onto Schmidt and our narrator. The two central people are far from likable, but it does not detract from the reading experience. Once you acknowledge the satire, you can enjoy what this novel offers without breaching the surface and diving in too deeply. The book is self-aware in its pretentiousness, even using this to its advantage: pretentious is interesting, layered albeit artificially. Haber's take on criticism comes from a place of tenderness, he tells David L. Ulin for Alta, mining the humor in cold analyses on something as unhindered and fluid as art. Of course, Schmidt and our narrator are not in on the joke, delightfully so.

Art, he believed, and I along with him, should be the centerpiece of one’s entire world. Schmidt had no time for people who didn’t hold art in the highest reverence and considered these people dimwitted and irrelevant, people, he felt, he had nothing in common with, no possible means of relating to, and hence even the shortest of conversations was a waste of time.

Glimpses of the fictional Beckenbauer’s eccentric life are also sewn through the narrative, and you begin to understand exactly why Schmidt and our narrator have such a devotion to him. Unbeknownst to Beckenbauer, his legacy would go on to form an anchor between two people that are as ambitious as they are competitive, drawing both in like moths to a long-gone flame.

A one-sided take on a two-person dance, Saint Sebastian’s Abyss is a unique tale of friendship held together by complete and utter obsession.