Male's Midlife Rite of Passage

“ ... Unlike the philosophical novels of Blanchot, Bataille and Peter Handke, for example, Will’s parables are tales of contemporary adventure, chock full of characters acting under pressure, identified by what they desire rather than by what they do or think. The protagonists Charles Morot, Hayes Straglund and Alfred Fisherson experience their adventures as literal advents, comings-into-being. Kidnapped, bound, drugged, robbed of identity, each protagonist is trapped in a birth narrative. The essayistic feature uniting these novellas is the case that we only come to be authentic subjects by being in the world we do not control; in a sense we earn our solitude by suffering, and our solitude consists of the realization that our identity is our fate ...” – (from the Foreword) Professor Robert Steiner, University of Colorado

“ ... These stories are seen in part through a Jackson Pollackesque series of images, particularly through the experiences of a professor of history at Wayne State College, Hayes Straglund, who, while taking a knapsack tour of some Greek islands, lies down to sleep one night and wakes to find himself in the arms of a drug cartel ... his experiences provide a semi-existential commentary on the lives of the cartel while, in the meantime, he becomes an involuntary addict himself ...” – W. Cotter Murray, Professor Emeritus, University of Iowa

Foreword by Robert Steiner
Introduction

Adventure in Algiers
Interlude

The Poppy Web
Epilogue
Interlude

The Disparition
Epilogue