That night we pull into Texas. I have only been back once since the fire that killed my twin brother Apollo. My family refuses to acknowledge that it ever happened. Pictures of the two of us have been painstakingly photo-shopped so that in each one where once my brother sat there is now a picture of a solid black gelding. My wife shudders as we walk down the hall to my old bedroom overlooked by dozens of pictures of me and the black donkey.
“What’s wrong with these people?” she whispers after I close the door behind us.
“They’re sad,” I say. “The gelding’s color represents death. The red bridle represents the fire. And that he is a gelding represents the fact that my parents will never know a grandchild sprung from his loins.”
“That’s weird,” she says.
“Or it could be a reference to Black Beauty,” I say. “It’s always been hard for me to understand my father.”
“I guess we all live with our symbols and personal mythologies,” she says. “I’m very cold. Will you hold me?”
———
REVIEWS
“Part action, part thriller, all comedy, The Librarian at the End of the World fires on all cylinders. Fans of Thomas Pynchon and David Foster Wallace will revel in the ridiculousness that is Miller’s America.”
“A constantly surprising picaresque journey through cultural darkness”
“A most unique rollicking story that careens from the almost familiar instantly into a world of what is happening here?
“Not so much a novel as a perpetual- motion machine: part road-show, part parable, careening between surrealism and comedy”
“Laugh out loud rambling tale of the future/present”
“Prepare to be blown away”
“On the cutting edge of audacious literature”
“Takes madcap to a new level, blending Preston Sturges and Philip Dick”
“Outrageous and thought-provoking”
“Just blown away.”
“Fantastic and bizarre”
“Lovecraft turns Beatnik and drops acid”
“One of the absolutely most freakishly odd books I have ever read”
“It’s like E. L. James, Larry Flynt, and Hunter Thompson somehow merged their DNA”
“Even Carrie Fisher (yes, her vagina is in here) isn’t safe from this menace!”
“If you are looking for a completely unique book, this one is hot!”
“Funny and intelligent”
“Filled with hedonism, erotica and hilarity.”
“Only for strong and fearless readers.”
“Wild, trippy, fun, and sometimes profound”
“I found myself engaged, disconnected and overwhelmed all at the same time”
“No one would ever expect this”
“Imagine a world where Thin Man was co-written by Tim Leary and Douglas Adams and set in the Office staffed by assassins”
“Brilliant, raunchy, hilarious, heartfelt, and by the end, breathtaking”
“Social satire at its best”
“In the end, this romp becomes something else. It becomes a work of art, moving and funny and memorable.”
Editor’s note: Technically it is her vulva, not her vagina.
Author Mark Miller 