The Alphabet Man

"America loves a murder, and I am a murderous American," observes Clyde Wayne Franklin, who is considered by many to be the foremost poet in America. No ordinary killer, he is equal parts writer, obsessive lover, alcoholic, moralist, ex-con, clown, and butcher. The Alphabet Man is the story of his ruthless search for carnal love and spiritual redemption as he moves through the underworld of Washington, D.C., a sadistic landscape peopled by drug dealers, prostitutes, and assassins-for-hire. Part thriller, part psychological and linguistic masterpiece, Grossman's explosive fiction convinces us that if there is a pure poetry in the modern world, it must be rooted in madness, prophecy, and bloodshed.

"Clyde Wayne Franklin.... is the most horrifyingly beautiful and monstrously lyrical narrator to stalk the pages of American fiction since Nobakov's Humbert Humbert."

-Larry McCaffery

"One of the best novels of any year, it is brilliantly structured to match the painfully coherent structure of Franklin's schizophrenic consciousness; it is also stylistically impeccable, managing to sustain its multiplicity of voices flawlessly."

-Booklist