Something in a stereo mix exists only when the channels are added - the way every kitchen heard it in 1961, and no one has heard it since. Fold to Mono follows Lino Vianello through a switch: a wife who translated compatibility, a counsel who prefers two rooms, a singer who will not give stereo a pension for hiding a supper.
Written in a voice that argues with itself and loses entertainingly, the novel treats phase as a poorly kept conscience. The mystery is a middle. The comedy is philosophical and a little cruel. Kitchens gossip first. The dead do not lecture. The living keep folding them.
