Paperback. Pub Date: 2009 Pages: 336 in Publisher: Vintage A black comedy in the grand tradition of word-drunk intellectuals-en-dementia.. The Thought Gang follows the larcenous adventures of blackout alcoholic philosopher Eddie Coffin the who in the wake of scandal. flees his professorship in England to begin the next logical step in his career: robbery. Coffin and his new partner in crime and metaphysics. Hubert the one-armed armed robber. road-trip across the Continent in a spree of crime and epistemology. arguing a cracked history of Western philosophy and plumbing the meaning of life.