"A witty, roller-coaster ride of uncertain identity set against the
gritty certainties of New York City. In compelling, unadorned prose,
Richard Wiley gives us a bewitching and ultimately moving tale."
--Caryl Phillips, author of A Distant Shore and The Lost Child
Dr. Ruby Okada meets a charming man with a Scottish accent in the
elevator of her psychiatric hospital. Unaware that he is an escaping
patient, she falls under his spell, and her life and his are changed
forever by the time they get to the street.
Who is the mysterious man? Is he Archie B. Billingsly, suffering from
dissociative identity disorder and subject to brilliant flights of fancy
and bizarre, violent fits? Or is he the reincarnation of Robert Louis
Stevenson, back to haunt New York as Long John Silver and Mr. Edward
Hyde? Her career compromised, Ruby soon learns that her future and that
of her unborn child depend on finding the key to his identity.
With compelling psychological descriptions and terrifying, ineffable
transformations, Bob Stevenson is an ingenious tale featuring a quirky
cast of characters drawn together by mutual fascination, need, and
finally, love.
Richard Wiley is the author of eight novels including Soldiers in
Hiding, winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, and Ahmed's
Revenge, winner of the Maria Thomas Fiction Award. Professor emeritus
at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, he divides his time between Los
Angeles, California and Tacoma, Washington.
