A "brilliant" novel about an alternate America that has been split in two ( San Francisco Chronicle ). In a dystopian Los Angeles, Cale is a newly released political prisoner under surveillance. Beset by dark visions and relegated to working in a desolate library, he's told, without explanation, that he's "the one everyone's looking for." For Catherine, a mysterious South American beauty, the crossing is no less extreme: Leaving her tribal life, she undergoes various confinements and escapes before winding up at the door of a Hollywood screenwriter. Finally Jack Mick Lake, possessed by numerology, must negotiate a river all his own. Stark and ethereal, Steve Erickson's tales connect to form a luminous and passionate whole.