Trade PaperbackWinner of the James Tate Black Prize“Hilarious, bizarre and absorbing. . . . Echoes of everyone from Walt Whitman to Will Rogers, vaudeville to Wittgenstein. . . . Powell can make the most barbed issues—the power of media, class resentment, private self-judgment and dread of death—slither through dialogue of zany simplicity.”—San Francisco Chronicle“Padgett Powell is a writer’s writer, with a spring-loaded imagination and a sense of rhythm and pace that can make his literary compatriots rock back on their heels in amazement at his mastery of craft.”—Weekly Standard