Lust & Philosophy

In this visceral novel (Kirkus Reviews), the author-protagonist transforms lust into gold through philosophical alchemy. Expat Isham Cook lives a highly ordered life of the mind and is not one to be swayed by circumstance until his dispassionate existence is tripped up by Cookie, an elusive woman glimpsed around his gritty Beijing neighborhood. He then becomes captivated by the flamboyant eroticism of a woman on the subway, Luna, who radically overhauls his most basic preconceptions. A third beauty of ambiguous Asiatic ethnicity, Adalat, is as unknowable as the others and incites a new obsession. Finally, a fourth character appears, one capable of pulling apart the very coordinates of Isham’s reality.

A hypnotic journey of a novel, with idea bombs going off along the way, Lust & Philosophy is mind-rape as literature, a fairytale on acid, and a holographic Rorschach test all in one, and will appeal to fans of Hermann Hesse, Philip K. Dick, J. G. Ballard and other novelists of the uncanny.