Nietzsche's Kisses

Nietzsche's Kisses is the narrative of Friedrich Nietzsche's last mad night on earth. Locked in a small room on the top floor of what would become The Nietzsche Archives in Weimar, one of the most radical and influential of nineteenth-century German philosophers hovers between dream and wakefulness, memory and hallucination, the first person, second, and third, past and present, reliving his brief love affair with feminist Lou Andreas-Salomé, his stormy association with Richard Wagner, and his conflicted relationship with Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, his radically anti-Semitic sister.

The novel is written in narrative triads: a first-person section (comprising the real-time of Nietzsche's last few hours alive), a second-person section (comprising hallucinations experienced by Nietzsche), and a third-person section (comprising Nietzsche's attempt to narrativize his own life; that triadic pattern is repeated throughout the novel.

In an in-depth critical article, Electronic Book Review called Olsen's novel "quite remarkable,"[2] while Publishers Weekly said Olsen is a "fine and daring writer, equal to the material."[3]

• Lance Olsen reads from Nietzsche's Kisses at The Writers Edge conference in Portland, Oregon (2007)
• Interview (2006) with Lance Olsen about Nietzsche's Kisses, by The Nietzsche Circle
• Interview (2006) with Lance Olsen about Nietzsche's Kisses, by Scott Esposito at PopMatters