The Menaced Assassin: A Novel

In this brilliant novel of dissimulation, the celebrated authors of The Other Planet and Red Moon/Red Lake once again map the mind of the Absent Generation. Celeste, the quintessential woman without qualities, one day decides that there is more to life than merely disappearing into a conventional novel. Propelled by a sense of purpose altogether befitting a future designer of fashions, she sets out to become the woman of her dreams. On her way into the "other zone," she falls into the company of a melancholy Scandinavian, and a polynomial taxi driver, moving through a mirror-world pierced together from a half-remembered movie plots, scenes in a sleazy crime and sex novels, advertisements in pulp magazines, and a stream of overheard conversations. The Menaced Assassin is an outrageously inventive exploration of identity, a modern Through the Looking Glass, in which reality is observed in such detail that it seems to be imagined. First published underground seven years ago, The Menaced Assassin has gained a devoted following, and is now reissued, with final revisions, completely reset and with a cover painting by Corliss Block.