National Network for Equitable Library Service

A place: the Traymore Rooms, downtown Montreal, an old walk-up. Those who live there and drink at the nearby caf' form the heart of Traymorean society. Their number includes: Eggy, red-faced, West Virginian, a veteran of Korea; Eleanor R (not Eleanor Roosevelt); Dubois, French Canadian, optimist; Moonface, waitress-cum-Latin-scholar and sexpot inexpert; and, most recently, our hero Calhoun. A draft dodger and poetical type. For a time all is life-as-usual: Calhoun argues with Eggy and Dubois, eats Eleanor's cobblers, gossips of Moonface, muses on Virgil and the current President. With the arrival of a newcomer to Traymore, however, Calhoun's thoughts grow fixated and dark. He comes to believe in the reality of evil. This woman breaks no laws and she inflicts no physical harm'yet for the citizens of Traymore, ex-pats and philosophers all, her presence becomes a vortex that draws them closer to the America they dread. Intelligent and frighteningly absurd, with a voice as nimble as Gass's and satire that pierces like Wallace's,'The Traymore Rooms'is a sustained howl against libertarianism under George W. Bush.