By the most celebrated and controversial French novelist of our time, this Goncourt-winning masterpiece--about art and money, love and friendship and death, fathers and sons--will bring Michel Houellebecq the broad readership in America that he has long enjoyed internationally.
 
The Map and the Territory is the story of an artist, Jed Martin, and his family and lovers and friends, the arc of his entire lifetime told with sharp humor and powerful compassion. His first photographs feature Michelin road maps (hence the title), and global success arrives with his series on professions: portraits of various personalities, including a writer named Houellebecq, captured at their work. Not long afterward, Jed helps a police inspector solve a heinous crime that leaves lasting marks on everyone involved. But after burying his father and growing old himself, Jed will also discover serenity and add another chapter to his artistic legacy, a deeply moving conclusion to this saga of hopes and losses and dreams