WINNER OF THE PEN/FAULKNER AWARD â�,�¢ A profound novel about art, terror, masses, and the individual, from the National Book Award�"winning author of White Noise, “one of the most ironic, intelligent, grimly funny voices to comment on life in present-day America” (The New York Times)
“This novel's a beauty. A vision as bold and a voice as eloquent and morally focused as any in American writing.” -- Thomas Pynchon
Bill Gray, a famous, reclusive novelist, emerges from his isolation when he becomes the key figure in an event staged to force the release of a poet hostage in Beirut. As Bill enters the world of political violence, a nightscape of Semtex explosives and hostages locked in basement rooms, his dangerous passage leaves two people stranded: his brilliant, fixated assistant, Scott, and the strange young woman who is Scott's lover -- and Bill's.
An extraordinary novel about words and images, novelists and terrorists, the mass mind and the arch-individualist, Mao II is the work of an ingenious writer at the height of his powers.
Click on any of the links above to see more books like this one.