#17

A novel about a novelist writing a novel about a novelist writing a novel. The characters and various imaginings of the various novelists slip between the various narrative threads and intermingle with memories, myths, and pamphlets about Christian morality. Some of the characters drug their creator in order to have freedom to do as they wish, which occasionally involves The Nasty, said Nasty leading to the birth full-grown of yet another novelist. Cowboys, Finn MacCool, a Good Fairy, a demon, a mad king who is half-bird--these are only some of those present.

Many of the characters and writers written by other writers work together to destroy their most immediate creator, who receives treatment right out of Juliette. Treatment that had me chuckling quite regularly. I read great swaths aloud like one struck mad, trying out brogues and tones and voices. A pleasure from cover to cover.