The stories

• "Blumfeld, an Elderly Bachelor" (Scholz)

A re-imagining of Kafka's uncompleted short story

Blumfeld, an Elderly Bachelor

Blumfeld, an Elderly Bachelor is an incomplete story by Franz Kafka. Probably written in the beginning of 1915, it first appeared in Beschreibung eines Kampfes . It relates part of the life of Blumfeld, an elderly bachelor, who upon arriving home finds two balls bouncing off the ground of their...

. First published in Crank! 1.

• "The Notebooks of Bob K." (Lethem)

Batman

Batman

Batman is a fictional character created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger. A comic book superhero, Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 , and since then has appeared primarily in publications by DC Comics...

 is presented as Kafka's creation, with parodies of some of Kafka's famous aphorisms and stories, including "The Burrow

The Burrow (short story)

The Burrow is an unfinished short story by Franz Kafka in which a mole-like being burrows through an elaborate system of tunnels it has built over the course of its life....

", "A Crossbreed (A Sport)

A Crossbreed (A Sport)

A Crossbreed is a short story by Franz Kafka.The story is about an animal that is half-kitten, half-lamb. The narrator describes how the creature has characteristics of each breed of animal, yet also has distinctive attributes of its own. In much of the story, great care is taken to describe the...

", and "The Vulture

The Vulture (Kafka)

"The Vulture" is a short story by Franz Kafka, written sometime between 1917 and 1923.-Plot summary:A vulture hacks at the protagonist's feet until a man passing by asks him why he doesn't do anything about it...

". A significantly different version of the story appeared in Gas

Gas (comic)

Gas was a British adult comic that was published monthly by Galaxy Publications from 1989 to 1991.Gas was one of many such comics emulating the success of Viz, and like many of its peers was a crude copycat of the format Viz pioneered.Initially, many strips were clearly rejected from Viz; many...

6.

• "Receding Horizon" (Lethem & Scholz)

Kafka comes to America, changes his name to Jack Dawson, and writes screenplays in Hollywood. First published in Crank! 5.

• "The Amount to Carry" (Scholz)

Kafka meets fellow insurance executives Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens was an American Modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as a lawyer for the Hartford insurance company in Connecticut.His best-known poems include "Anecdote of the Jar",...

 and Charles Ives

Charles Ives

Charles Edward Ives was an American modernist composer. He is one of the first American composers of international renown, though Ives' music was largely ignored during his life, and many of his works went unperformed for many years. Over time, Ives came to be regarded as an "American Original"...

. First published in Starlight 2.

• "K. for Fake" (Lethem)

Parody of The Trial

The Trial

The Trial is a novel by Franz Kafka, first published in 1925. One of Kafka's best-known works, it tells the story of a man arrested and prosecuted by a remote, inaccessible authority, with the nature of his crime revealed neither to him nor the reader.Like Kafka's other novels, The Trial was never...

. First published in McSweeney's Quarterly

Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern

Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern is a literary journal, first published in 1998, edited by Dave Eggers. The first issue featured only works rejected by other magazines, but thereafter the journal began to include pieces written with McSweeney's in mind. McSweeney’s has since published works by...

4.