A History of the Imagination is a postmodern tale of adventure that reshapes the parameters of time and space, thought and action. In a metaphorical Africa, replete with nostalgia (but no dimensions), anything can happen and usually does. The narrator defends his magical departures, saying his is a history of possibilities, where fiction is "no less real for it's] being so." But when Darwin's corpse begins to lust after Colette and the African porters go on strike because the author hasn't acknowledged the important role they play, we are left to wonder: just how far is reality from...

Fiction. In Java, a master of the shadow-puppet theater seeks to possess--by his art--a woman, who perishes as though by the contagion of his unnatural desire. SHADOWPLAY is a meditation on story-telling as an act of seizure, a parable of obsession and of the danger of confounding the real with its representations. " A] journey as delicious as it is threatening"--R.M. Berry. " Lock's] prose is melodial, and alert to every signal from the unseen"--Gary Lutz. "Wise up and get all you can of Lock"--Gordon Lish. "All hail Lock, whose narrative soul sings fairy tales..."--Kate Bernheimer. "Lock...

"Topical, astonishing and provocative . . . a masterful collection." --Shelf Awareness for Readers (starred review)

" Lock's stories] are gems, rich in imagination and language . . . For all their convolutions of space and time, these stories are remarkably easy to follow and savor." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Mr. Hyde finally reveals his secrets to an ambitious journalist, unleashing unforeseen horrors. An ancient Egyptian mummy is revived in 1935 New York to consult on his Hollywood biopic. A Brooklynite suddenly dematerializes and passes...

"Mesmerizingly twisted, richly layered." --New York Times Book Review

" Norman Lock's fiction] shimmers with glorious language, fluid rhythms, and complex insights." --NPR

In his third book of The American Novels series, Norman Lock recounts the story of a young Philadelphian, Edward Fenzil, who, in the winter of 1844, falls under the sway of two luminaries of the nineteenth-century grotesque imagination: Thomas Dent Mutter, a surgeon and collector of medical "curiosities," and Edgar Allan Poe. As Fenzil struggles against the powerful wills that would usurp his...