The Interrogative Mood

''If Duchamp or maybe Magritte wrote a novel it might look something like this remarkable little book of Padgett Powell''s: immensely readable, ingenious, witty, and ultimately important-feeling in a way you can''t quite describe but don''t need to'' Richard Ford

Are your emotions pure? Are your nerves adjustable? How do you stand in relation to the potato? Should it still be Constantinople? Does a nameless horse make you more nervous or less nervous than a named horse? In your view, do children smell good? ... Does your doorbell ever ring? Is there sand in your craw?

Is it a novel? Whatever it is, The Interrogative Mood is stubbornly memorable. Through a seemingly random but infinitely artful series of questions this small masterpiece mysteriously, elusively, hilariously, compellingly lights up life.