Beyond the Bush

A tale of furiously abstract woe. And hidden might and insanity. And James Bond. And the evil Dr. Bidaddy, and a cheesy Hollywood producer named Jack Bronstein, and a scriptwriter named Fat Guy, and the legendary Burfresca—a beverage vaguely related to the burrito, but you have to taste it to understand.

Editor's note: This may be a new kind of book. I'm not sure it should have been written—Ignatius took some hard hits in the process—but once it was there, it had to be published. If you need the obligatory established-author comparison, I suppose if William Burroughs hadn't been a giant spoiled brat, and if he'd had a more swinging sense of the absurd, he might have written something vaguely similar. Speaking of rich kids who got away with murder, there's some funny Dick Cheney material in here... and it isn't the tired blue-state boilerplate you'd necessarily expect. Hang with old Ignatius through the film-obsessed prologue, my ADD-riddled little cats and kittens; there's a payoff. But only if you're good enough to be cloned. --Ann Sterzinger