PETER: AN (A)HISTORICAL ROMANCE

Fiction. PETER: AN (A)HISTORICAL ROMANCE, a controversial new novel by one of our most important, innovative, and uncompromising authors re-envisions Herman Melville's Pierre in 1999 Los Angeles. An orphaned child of privilege, Peter enjoys a snug existence full of things--to eat, to wear, and to play with. But his world is rocked when he meets a young Palestinian woman, Reham, who claims to be Peter's half-sister. DeShell's excessive, digressive opera of objects follows these two to Istanbul, Jerusalem, and Gaza City, teetering on the razor's edge between obsession and rejection, fascination and disgust. "A trenchant indictment of everything rampant materialism sought to co-opt in the late 1990s--love, individuality, history, cultural identity"--TimeOut Chicago. "By turns hilariousand harrowing, Peter is pure dynamite"--Laird Hunt.