Fiction. A boy finds an artist's manifesto on the floor, a gay man reflects on his regrets, a woman suddenly sees a man's face through her car window. Subtly referencing some of the great iconoclasts of literature and philosophy (Kafka, Wilde, Nietzsche), the vignettes in THE BIG LIE unveil a defiant sense of contemporary artistic possibility, rising at times into a full-scale attack on American style consumerism, unmediated authorship, and the bloated privileges of literary genius. Quick shifts between styles, personas, and subject matter keep the reader critical and wary.

Author Hometown: SAN DIEGO, CA USA



About the author: Mark Wallace is the author of more than fifteen books and chapbooks of fiction, poetry and essays. TEMPORARY WORKER RIDES A SUBWAY won the 2002 Gertrude Stein Poetry Award. His critical articles and reviews have appeared in numerous publications, and he has co-edited two essay collections on contemporary poetics. Most recently he has published a book of short stories, WALKING DREAMS, and a book of poems, FELONIES OF ILLUSION. Raised in the Washington, D.C. area, he currently lives near the beach in Carlsbad, California.

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