Fiction. In his first novel since the acclaimed and award-winning "Swanny's Ways," Steve Katz takes another look at the failure of Humanism in the West, through the lens of the great Sicilian master, Antonello da Messina. A father and son, who have never met, both set out on quests for meaning in their lives. The father is obsessed with Antonello, and convinced he can find what he thinks is a lost painting of St. Francis. He gets lost on the way, and disappears. The son becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to the father, and his discoveries are more than he can absorb. This is a double picaresque that takes turns through fantasy, sexual follies, and wild historical and philosophical speculations. The frail positioning of order in art are played against the background of contemporary chaos.

Author City: DENVER, CO USA

Steve Katz was one of the founders of Fiction Collective (FC2) and he started the short-lived PIIF (Projects In Innovative Fiction) with Walter Abish, Clarence Major, and Michael Stephens. He taught creative writing and literature at Cornell University, Brooklyn College, Queens College, The University of Iowa Writer's Workshop, The University of Notre Dame, and The University of Colorado in Boulder, from which he retired in 2003.