The Interrogative Mood: A Novel?

The Interrogative Mood: A Novel?

<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white" class=MsoNormal>“If Duchamp or maybe Magritte wrote a novel (and maybe they did. Did they?) it might look something like this remarkable little book of Padgett Powell’s.”</p><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white" class=MsoNormal>—Richard Ford</p><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; BACKGROUND: white" class=MsoNormal><br /><em>The Interrogative Mood </em>is a<span style="COLOR: black"> wildly inventive, jazzy meditation on life and language by the novelist that Ian Frazier hails as “one of the best writers in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">America</st1:country-region></st1:place>, and one of the funniest, too.” A novel composed entirely of questions, it is perhaps the most audacious literary high-wire act since Nicholson Baker’s <em>The Mezzanine </em>or David Foster Wallace’s stories;<em> </em>a playful and profound book that, as </span>Jonathan Safran Foer<span style="COLOR: black"> says, “</span>will sear the unlucky volumes shelved on either side of it. How it doesn’t, itself, combust in flames is a mystery to me.” </p>