by David Mamet
First published 1983
Edmond sits across from a fortune-teller who speaks words that shatter his comfortable existence. Her cryptic message propels him to abandon everything he knows and plunge into the dark streets of New York City. He leaves behind his suburban life, his marriage, his job, casting off each piece of his former identity like dead skin. The city's underworld swallows him whole. He encounters pimps, prostitutes, and criminals in seedy bars and back alleys. Violence erupts around him and through him as he searches for something real beneath the veneer of civilized society. Edmond believes he can find his authentic self in this raw urban wilderness, but the deeper he descends, the more brutal his journey becomes. His quest strips away not just his old life but his humanity itself, revealing the savage impulses that civilization barely contains.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, crime, contemporary, psychological-thriller, dark
Vibes: dark, emotional, intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: descent-into-madness, fish-out-of-water, quest
Setting: New York City
Period: Contemporary
106 pages · Hardcover · Grove Press
Content warnings: graphic-violence, violence