First published in French in 1950 in a limited edition of 100 copies then republished in 1953 and enthusiastically praised by Andr Breton The Conductor and Other Tales is Jean Ferrys only published book of fiction. It is a collection of short prose narratives that offer a blend of pataphysical humor and surreal nightmare secret societies so secret that one cannot know if one is a member or not musichall acts that walk a tightrope from humor to horror childhood memories of a man never born and correspondence from countries that are more states of mind than geographical locales. Lying somewhere between Kafkas parables and the prose poems of Henri Michaux Ferrys tales read like pages from the journal of a stranger in a familiar land.