Mao II A Novel

<b>WINNER OF THE PEN/FAULKNER AWARD • A profound novel about art, terror, masses, and the individual, from the National Book Award–winning author of <i>White Noise</i>, “one of the most ironic, intelligent, grimly funny voices to comment on life in present-day America” (<i>The New York Times</i>)</b><br> <br><b>“This novel’s a beauty. A vision as bold and a voice as eloquent and morally focused as any in American writing.”—Thomas Pynchon</b><br> <br>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.<br> <br>An extraordinary novel about words and images, novelists and terrorists, the mass mind and the arch-individualist, <i>Mao II</i> is the work of an ingenious writer at the height of his powers.