John Hawkes (1925-1998) was one of the most innovative and widely regarded novelists of the twentieth century. Born in Stamford, Connecticut, and educated at Harvard University, Hawkes taught at Brown University for thirty years. Praised by Leslie Fiedler, Flannery O'Connor, and William H. Gass, who wrote, "when it comes to the engravement of the sentence . . . no one can match him," Hawkes was the author of numerous acclaimed novels, including The Lime Twig, The Beetle Leg, Second Skin, Adventures in the Alaskan Skin Trade and The Passion Artist.

"Faintly menacing, deliberately ambiguous, heavy with sexual innuendo, the narrator's voice in this tightly spun, chilling new novel by accomplished writer Hawkes (Adventures in the Alaskan Skin Trade) is appropriate to the bizarre story that unfolds." --Publishers Weekly