Interrogation Tactic

You've heard of Padgett Powell, right? Mrs. Hollingsworth's Men?

Edisto? Southern? Can you picture the rabble-rousing literary offspring of Flannery O'Connor and Donald Barthelme? Does the prospect of reading a lawlessly lyrical, comic novel composed entirely in The Interrogative Mood (Ecco) pique your curiosity?

Would you be seduced by a relentless interrogator whose agenda is known only through the absurd and probing questions he or she asks? Do you nurse any prejudices about conversing with bus-station philosophers, unabashed horndogs, or Chatty Cathies with boundary issues? Should you find yourself guffawing at off-color jokes or seized by emotion, would you feel liberated or uncomfortable? For a moment less alone? If you became aware that this process was creating a picture not only of your questioner but also of yourself, would you recognize that self?E.S.