Farrell published his first novel, "A Man From Elsewhere", in 1963. Set in France, it shows the clear influence of French Existentialism. The story follows Sayer, a journalist for a communist paper, as he tries to find skeletons in Regan's closet. Regan is a dying novelist who is about to be awarded an important Catholic literary prize. The book mimics the fight between the two leaders of French existentialism: Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, Sayer representing Sartre and Regan Camus. The two argue about existentialism: the position that murder can be vindicated as an expedient in overthrowing tyranny (Sartre) versus the stance that there are no ends that justify unjust means (Camus). Bernard Bergonzi reviewed it in the "New Statesman"'s 20 September 1963 issue, writing, "Many first novels are excessively autobiographical, but "A Man from Elsewhere" suffers from the opposite fault of being a cerebral construct, dreamed up out of literature and the contemporary French cinema." Simon Raven wrote in "The Observer" on 15 September 1963, "Mr. Farrell's style is spare, his plotting lucid and well timed; his expositions of moral or political problems are pungent if occasionally didactic." It entirely lacks the ironic humour and tender appreciation of human frailty that characterise his later work. Farrell came to dislike the book.