Null Set - Tapa dura

..".[a] work of process, not product; of sustained excitement, not sated satisfaction" -- Fiction International ..".tough and gory, ripping away at a veneer of realistic trivia" -- Chicago Review ..".[Chambers is] going to be around long after today's bestseller list has evaporated" -- New York Times Book Review

The Dean is about to fire Professor Shakespeare because he lisps. In a tirade of racial and sexual bigotry, an old man defines moral integrity. An immigrant enters an "adult" bookstore and comes out in tears. Starved and hallucinating, a young man finds himself among the rescuers of the Donner Party. A man concerned with his "social survival" uses the wrong plate at a dinner party. Sitting at the right hand of God, a madame defends her trade as Art. A man says the rosary of defeat. An immigrant couple kiss a brick from Ernest Hemingway's swimming pool. A rape victim testifies to a life without choices. An old peasant goes to town to buy a letter to send his daughter in America. A cake becomes the supreme gesture of affection.