6Fiction. Faced with photos of a once- tumultuous New York art world, the narrator's mind in this scathing, darkly funny novel begins to erupt. Memories jostle for center stage, just as those that they are about always did. These brilliant but broken survivors of the '80s and '90s have now reached the brink of middle age and are facing the challenge of continuing to feel authentic. Luminous with imagery, cackling with bitter humor, and with a new foreword by the author, this roman à clé spares no one. It's a canny portrait of one era's vaporization, and a study of the perpetual need that some of us feel to reconstruct ourselves--atom by atom.

With scrupulously intense sentences--pitch- perfect, pitch-dark--Indiana conjures a hugely sad New York novel that feels at once state-of-the-art and stunningly ancient.--The Believer

...a great book--melancholic and funny and wicked smart...--Michael Miller

...some of the best prose of his career.--Publishers Weekly

Gary Indiana delves into the minds of his creepy, appalling characters with such probing wit and lip-smacking glee that we actually enjoy our time with these amoral monsters.--John Waters