Baby is an observer

Small children can be quite alarming. We may expect them to be impressed by our superior intelligence and strength, or at least our ability to drive. But what if they are wiser than we think?

What if they are turning us over in their minds, sardonically assessing our performances as we put on silly voices or praise them for making a pooh in a potty? Never mind big brother: little baby is watching you.

The hero of Percival Everett's novel is a baby called Ralph. He is 10 months old when we meet him, but he has never uttered a word and his mum and dad think he must be rather stupid.

But then Ralph purloins a pen and calmly writes them a note. He says he has decided to give spoken language a miss and focus on reading instead, so would they kindly place some serious books in his crib?

Uneasily, they comply. This is California in the Seventies, and Ralph's dad is a professor of literature and a dedicated follower of fashion, so Ralph ends up reading not only the literary classics but also trendy philosophical commentaries preaching the gospel according to Parisian post-structuralism. Reality is dead, they tell him: everything is metaphor, and there are no solid truths behind our shifting swarms of words.

Bullshit, thinks Ralph; and having read Husserl and Wittgenstein he can hold his philosophical ground, even if he has not yet mastered his bowel openings.

News of his talents has got out, however, and late one night he is snatched from his cot by a foul-mouthed psychologist who wants him for her research.

Before long he is re-kidnapped, this time by government agents who think he could become America's secret weapon in the Cold War. Then he is liberated by a sentimental Hispanic security guard and spirited away by a paedophile priest with an interest in casting out devils.

The violent forces of science, state and church are now at loggerheads over the missing baby; but while they fight a pitched battle on live TV, Ralph manages to get himself abducted by his own mother, who drives him to a little seaside town where they adopt new names and are set to live happily ever after.

Glyph is a fast-paced comedy bristling with well-aimed jokes about the idiocies of American life. But it is also a stunning literary experiment.