Adolf Hitler has been called one of the greatest orators who ever lived; his speeches worked crowds into a nationalistic frenzy, and his rhetoric bonded elements of his audience's psyche to his own terrifying socio-political goals. In Chase Me, Catch Nobody, Haugaard explores language's potential to conceal or transform reality. Observing the Germany of 1937, Erik wonders if the country is not "a stage now...with all the audience rejoicing that for the first time they are being allowed behind the footlights." Actors in a play of universal significance, the characters in Haugaard's novel learn that language— whether spoken or written—has the power to shape human existence.

Erik and his schoolmates are tourists in a foreign country. They all study the German language in school but speak it with varying degrees of proficiency. The language barrier serves as both a source of humor&mdash...