In a series of comic vignettes and letters, Mordechai Schamz sets out to investigate himself, his world, and the language which makes them both intelligible. Dumbfounded at every turn and undiscouraged by -- perhaps even unaware of -- his failures, he confidently gets lost in the labyrinth of his investigations. Reminiscent of Flaubert's Bouvard and Pecuchet, Calvino's Palomar, and Beckett's Watt, Mordechai Schamz ponders the mysteries of life through cliches and solipsisms, making himself the master of the illogical and the clown of the absurd.

Reissue of the translation published in Ljubljana by the Slovene Writers' Association, 2007.

Masochism is out and feminism is in, Jews are out and Germans are in, race is out and gender is in, and everyone's fighting (and rewriting) for a piece of the pie. Jewish director Jim Minsk disappears during a trip to the South. Black playwright Ian Ball writes the all-female play Reckless Eyeballing in hopes of getting off the "sex-list." Preeminent playwright Jack Brashford, claiming the Jews stole all his black material, decides to write about Armenians. In the background, an unknown assailant dubbed the "Flower Phantom" runs loose through the city shaving heads of prominent black feminists (to the secret delight of black men).In this hilarious, devastating, but also deeply sympathetic novel, Ishmael Reed turns characters on the backs, sides, tops and bottoms to expose the multiple hypocrisies at the heart of American culture.

Jason is a scriptwriter working on a film about Masada--the fortress where a thousand Jews killed themselves rather than be taken prisoner by the Romans in A. D. 73. He doubts that a film both honest and popular on such a subject can be made, and, while en route to the production site (Jason, producers and stars in first class--his wife and child in tourist), a dispute about the film and a crisis aboard the plane forces Jason to look at his life, his art, and the world around him in several different ways at once.

"A luminous parable . . . A masterpiece." The New York Times

Years after having an affair that almost ruined their respective marriages, Jane Weatherby and John Pomfret are reunited when their children decide to get married despite questions regarding their possible kinship and the fact that they have almost no money to their name. Afraid that Mary Pomfret and Philip Weatherby are destined for the working-class, Jane and John attempt to stall the development of the wedding plans by having endless conversations about, well, nothing. This gives Jane--a shrewd, resourceful widow--the opportunity to embark on a scheme to lure John away from his current love interest. As the plot advances through discussions filled with misdirections and omissions, Green demonstrates that there is nothing like the spoken word to conceal one's true intentions. One of Green's final novels, "Nothing" is a worthy addition to the varied tradition of English literature that includes Virginia Woolf and Evelyn Waugh.