Talking Man

Having dreamt this world into being, the wizard called ""Talking Man'' falls in love with what he has made and retires there. He lives in a house trailer on a Kentucky hillside close by his junkyard, and he only uses magic on the rare occasions he can't fix a car the other way. He'd be there still if his jealous codreamer Dgene hadn't decided to undo his creation and return this world to nothingness. When Talking Man lights out to stop her, his daughter Crystal and chance-acquaintance William Williams give chase into a West that changes around them. The geography shimmers and melts, catfish big as boats are pulled from the Mississippi, the moon crumbles into luminous rings and refugees from burning cities choke the highways. A novel of the new South with a liberal dose of the old, fantastic and gothic, a road novel leading to the city at the end of time, a postmodern, Sam Shepard, apocalpseone you can drive to in a '62 Chrysler New Yorkerthis is a charming, literate, laconic tale, deceptively brief, teasingly allusive and very entertaining. Paperback rights to Avon. (October 27)