Poetry. African American Studies. In SURFACES AND MASKS, Clarence Major is a pointillist, impressionist, breakneck historian, creating a tapestry that utilizes and satirizes his chosen subject, Venice. With the same unstoppable intelligence that inspired his award-winning novel, My Amputations, Major creates a thoroughly modern picture of this glittering, grandiose swamp. The hopeless contradictions of the city mirror his own, yielding a multiform epic of cool irritation, green-headed ducks, and profuse growth.