Robert Coover's wicked and surreally comic novel takes place at a
chilling, ribald, and absolutely fascinating party. Amid the drunken
guests, a woman turns up murdered on the living room floor. Around the
corpse, one of several the evening produces, Gerald's party goes on -- a
chatter of voices, names, faces, overheard gags, rounds of storytelling,
and a mounting curve of desire. What Coover has in store for his guests
(besides an evening gone mad) is part murder mystery, part British
parlor drama, and part sly and dazzling meditation on time, theater, and
love.