In the most personal writing he has ever undertaken, veteran novelist Keith Maillard turns to poetry to evoke the madness of America in the time of the Gulf War. Also included is a long poem in blank verse about the Harry Thaw trial, in which Maillard depicts Evelyn Nesbit, the eerily beautiful woman in the court proceedings. A superb documentation of America's dark obsession with youth, purity, style and violence. Winner of the 1995 Gerald Lampert prize for best first book of poetry.