Some novels do not find publishers. Occasionally, however, a deserving novel, either because it is too out of the ordinary or by too unknown an author or for some other reason, is passed over. Ulrich Haarbürste's Novel of Roy Orbison In Clingfilm, written by Michael Kelly, is one such book. Self-published this year, it is both one of the funniest and oddest books I have ever read. To understand it, though, we need to begin with the novel's principal character and ostensible creator, Ulrich Haarbürste.

Ulrich lives in Düsseldorf, Germany, in a small house which he shares with Jetta, his pet turtle. After writing without publishing for a number of years, Ulrich (who, in keeping with the internet's informality, usually goes by his given name) first presented his work to the public in 2003, on his website. The response was sufficiently positive that, despite industry indifference, Ulrich in February released his first novel.

A single passion animates all of Ulrich's fiction: his desire to wrap Roy Orbison in clingfilm. Roy Orbison, who died in 1989, was a pop singer from the sixties; the original "Pretty Woman" is his best-known song. "Clingfilm" is the British word for Saran Wrap: like Conrad but unlike Nabokov--the two nonnative geniuses of English literature to whom he compares himself--Ulrich favors British usage. The source of Ulrich's fascination with clingfilm and Orbison is ultimately, like the source of all inspiration, mysterious. But when refracted through his artistic consciousness, they result, in the author's words, in work of intense "sensuality and romantic lyricism."

Ulrich Haarbürste is the invention of Michael Kelly, an English comic writer in his thirties who is, from his website, apparently unemployed. Roy Orbison in Clingfilm is also Kelly's first published book; his name, however, appears nowhere in it. Spending more time on Kelly's life, interesting as it may be, seems for this reason a little misguided. His greatest achievement in writing this novel is his ability to inhabit Ulrich's voice and character almost totally.

The "novel" is actually twelve stories and a novel. The first seven stories are available for free. Since both the stories and the novel--with the exception of a few fantastic idylls and historical pieces--form more or less a linear progression, the best way to introduce the book is to reproduce the first few lines of the first story (a terrapin is a freshwater turtle):

It always starts the same way. I am in the garden airing my terrapin Jetta when he walks past my gate, that mysterious man in black. 'Hello Roy,' I say. 'What are you doing in Dusseldorf?' 'Attending to certain matters,' he replies. 'Ah,' I say. He apprises Jetta's lines with a keen eye. 'That is a well-groomed terrapin,' he says. 'Her name is Jetta.' I say. 'Perhaps you would like to come inside?' 'Very well.' He says. Roy Orbison walks inside my house and sits down on my couch. We talk urbanely of various issues of the day. Presently I say, 'Perhaps you would like to see my cling-film?' 'By all means.' I cannot see his eyes through his trademark dark glasses and I have no idea if he is merely being polite or if he genuinely has an interest in cling-film.

Ulrich's less-than-perfect command of English, the source of many of Kelly's jokes is most immediately obvious. A few of Ulrich's other quirks are also evident, including his scrupulous politeness and peculiar understanding of narrative and human motivation. "Attending to certain matters" is not a satisfactory explanation for Roy's presence in front of Ulrich's house, nor is "it always starts" a very skillful opening.

Kelly may very well have invented a new, if minor, genre: the clingfilm wrapping fantasy. We see the first hint of it in the analogy to overtly sexual seduction at the end of the passage. The motivating problem: Ulrich only gets pleasure from wrapping Roy if it's consensual. In each of his fantasies, then, he has to invent a new way of convincing Roy to let himself be wrapped. In this first story, for example, he bets Roy that a single roll of clingfilm would suffice to completely surround the singer. As the stories progress, the scenarios become increasingly elaborate and outlandish. A few examples: Roy suffers from heart failure and has to be preserved on his way to the hospital; Roy gets caught in a poison gas attack during the First World War; Roy is allergic to the seals at the Düsseldorf Pet Show where he's a celebrity judge. After the wrapping is complete, Ulrich describes his joy. The novel takes this form and plays with it, expanding and varying it in ways that are nothing short of ingenious.

For the most part Kelly does a good job of avoiding the obvious gags and hyperbole you often find in poorly-done humor pieces such as those written by, say, college students. Ulrich and his passions may, however, seem too farfetched to be comically effective. Humor, especially humor at this length, must have a certain plausibility or coherence. A novel that is just an accumulation of ridiculous episodes and events is tedious, not funny; we have to be able to believe that the absurdities we're reading about could, in some universe, take place. In Roy Orbison in Clingfilm, that universe is in Ulrich Haarbürste's head. At his best Kelly submerges himself so completely in his narrator (who is different, although he sometimes has trouble with the idea, from Ulrich the main character) that we forget anyone other than Ulrich is telling the story. We're thus free to laugh at his oddness without worrying that it's false.

The weakest parts of the novel are, accordingly, those in which Kelly's authorship shows through. This happens incidentally at various points throughout the novel, but it's most aggravating a third of the way through when Jim Morrison shows up at a dinner party. He speaks in a kind of parody-American hippy slang that is neither believably Ulrich's nor funny on its own.

Repetitiveness sinks in toward the middle of the novel when Kelly seems, at last, to have exhausted the joke. Pretty soon, though, Ulrich introduces some new characters who are, despite being totally unlike those who came before, still clearly and hilariously products of his imagination, and the book picks back up again. I would, actually, have liked to see Ulrich depict a considerably broader range of figures in Düsseldorf society.

This book is a little difficult to get hold of. It was self-published just this year; the Dartmouth library doesn't have a copy and likely never will. Amazon doesn't sell it. The easiest way to get it is to order online from England. That costs a little over $20, and for that price you get a small paperback with no cover art, font size 10 Times New Roman, and amateurish layout. The homemade quality has, though, a certain charm. It's physical proof that what you're reading isn't standard-issue fiction and that, in buying the book, you're supporting an unjustly unappreciated talent.

On his site Ulrich remarks that film and video game rights are still available. Future entrepreneurs: take note.