"Fathers are like blocks of marble, giant cubes, highly polished, with veins and seams, placed squarely in your path. . . They cannot be climbed over, neither can they be slithered past." The dead father, who is some 3,200 cubits long, is being hauled across the landscape by means of a cable pulled by nineteen or so of his followers. Except the dead father is not really dead. He is past his prime, sexually and authoritatively. He is vain and foolish, but he looms large. He has been a confessor -- his huge, hollow mechanical leg is large enough to contain confessionals -- and an autocrat. A manual for sons, offering sample fatherly monologues and tips on identifying fathers by color and general habit, is included for the confused. Barthelmes extraordinary retelling of the universal myth of fathers carries echoes of Beckett, Kafka, James Joyce, and Sylvia Plath. His tale evokes memories of Orpheus and King Lear, but also, perhaps, Woody Allen. The Dead Father, wildly comic and provocative, brims with energy and literary antics.

"The Dead Father is funny, angry, marvelous -- an astonishing book, the best book so far by an already prodigious writer." -- Susan Sontag "The delight he offers to readers is beyond question; his individuality is unmatched. He has now moved to the forefront of the contemporary comic nihilists . . ." -- Los Angeles Times

Cover design by Todd Radom Cover illustration by Lonnie Sue Johnson