"David Berman is a young Virginian poet with a sly, intense regard for the past. He comes on like a prankster, restocking the imperial orations of Wallace Stevens and the byzantine monologues of John Ashberry with the pop-cultural bric-a-brac of a new generation: 'I am not a cub scout seduced by Iron Maiden’s mirror worlds.' But his words have an easy, eloquent gait; each line needs to be a line. The landscapes are crisply American, and history, especially Southern history casts a shadow. A poem about the death of Lincoln ends, 'The assassin was in mid-air / when the stagehands wheeled out clouds.' "
– The New Yorker, Oct 4, 1999

"This debut announces the discovery of great American poetic storytelling by a new generation."
– Publisher's Weekly, June 28, 1999

Deluxe hardcover edition with dustjacket.
Limited to 500 copies worldwide.

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