Cambodia, a Book for People Who Find Television Too Slow

This peculiar collection's title essay, set in small type across the bottom third of each page, is a rambling meditation on the U.S. bombing and invasion of Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge massacres, the American public's amnesia concerning these and other horrors, Joseph Conrad, colonialism and the difficulty of being a writer adrift in the ``Global Village.'' Sitting astride this ``subtext'' are 13 short essays and stories. In one, Marshall McLuhan meets St. Paul on the road to Damascus and counsels the apostle on making Christianity a big business. Other pieces deal with the stupidity of corporate meetings, the effects of a satellite dish on a small town, the experience of eating ``Universal Chicken'' at a drive-in and an imaginary effort to design a shelter to house chronically unemployed professionals. The odd layout is pointless and annoying, and the relationship between the running essay and the other slight pieces is tangential at best. (September)