A novel about the art of writing itself.

Review

Falling somewhere between the realms of Henry Adams and all of Monty Python, Gore Vidal has for many years served as America's own Tiresias Jay McInerney Absolutely unique ... Vidal is a master Italo Calvino One of the most brilliant, most radical and most subversive pieces of writing to merege from America in recent years New Statesman

From the Inside Flap

"A wild spoof of absolutely everything: social pretenses, law enforcement, marriage, open marriage, racism, literature, television, science fiction, and sex. Dozens of plots perk along at an amazing pace . . . . raunchy, dirty, outrageous, rife with cliches -- and often very funny." -- People
"One of the most brilliant, most radical, and most subversive pieces of writing to emerge from America in recent years." -- The New Statesman
"Vidal belongs to that group of writers of our time who, precisely because they have always kept their eyes open to the disorders and distortions of our age, have chosen irony, humor, comedy -- in other words, the whole range of literary instruments belonging to the universe of the laugh -- as their means of settling accounts." -- Italo Calvino