| Synopsis: |
Norman Lock is a hero of the literary underground whose career began when Philip Roth facilitated his admittance to Syracuse's graduate creative writing program. Lock went on to maintain a long friendship with Gordon Lish (whose fictional double makes an appearance in this collection) and receive the Paris Review Aga Kahn Prize from George Plimpton. Since then, he has been reviewed and profiled by outlets ranging from the Los Angeles Times and Guardian to Bookslut and The Believer, but he has only been published by micro-presses with limited distribution. This collection will mark his first introduction to a larger audience. Like Chabon, Lethem, Link, and Auster, Lock weaves messages about the artist's life into exquisite, haunting fantasies, while spinning new tales about Mr. Hyde, The Mummy, The Phantom of the Opera, Tom Sawyer and Jim, Mata Hari, the Wright Brothers, Henry James, and Jules Verne. As Lock turns horror, historical, adventure, comic book, and speculative fiction on its head, he also introduces readers to a host of unforgettable new characters: a ghost ship's steward, a train running the mysterious tracks of time, a primeval forest dweller, Victorian anarchists, WWI-era lovers, a talking dog, and a Brooklynite reduced to mere particles. |