Law
Publisher Description
Max volunteers for bizarre surgery which leaves him forever interred in a cocoon of self. In his utter solitude, he recites poetry that mobilizes a movement and threatens the stability of a nation. John, having lost his wife, is unhinged by isolation and remorse. He disintegrates into multiple personalities which fold back into him when he and Max finally meet. Forever in the background, the hand of the Institute conspires to steer the fate of one man toward emergence and the other toward decline. With a nod to the works of Kafka, Céline and Burroughs, “Law” rips through an exploration of art, the extraordinary and the mundane, the compulsion to join in the community of man and the need to stand apart.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This odd, sometimes absurd, always surprising effort from Willis is likely to confuse most if not all readers. The difficult-to-follow plot begins with Max, who is considering a medical procedure that involves cutting open his skull while he s under local anesthesia. John has sex with a woman their coupling is described as a perpetual motion device made of meat that ends with a bed covered in blood. When John is next encountered, his friend Dick is telling him that asexual reproduction will soon be reality for humans with dire consequences for the male of the species. Readers will find themselves asking, What s going on here? Many will be unable to answer that question by the book s end. And without fully developed characters with which to identify, most readers won t stick around to sort out this bizarre narrative.
