A Disorder Peculiar to the Country

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In a rollicking black comedy about terrorism, war, and conjugal strife, the author, praised by Salon for his "chameleonic fluency," revisits peculiar episodes in recent American history. Joyce and Marshall Harriman are in the midst of a contentious divorce while living in a cramped Brooklyn apartment with their two small children. One late-summer morning, Joyce heads to Newark Airport for a flight to San Francisco, while Marshall goes to his office in the World Trade Center. Both miss pivotal moments that day, leading each to believe the other is dead, sparking a shameful yet exhilarating sense of relief. The narrative kicks off with a critique of national piety, following the couple as they navigate their mutual disappointment and escalating divorce conflict, all while grappling with the strange ravages of America in the early Bush administration. Joyce suspects Marshall of sending an anthrax-laced envelope to her office, while he taps her phone and studies plans for a suicide bomb. The stock market crash, the war in Afghanistan, and Abu Ghraib become battlegrounds in their marriage. Concluding with the liberation of Iraq, the story lampoons how public calamities invade private lives, firmly establishing Ken Kalfus as a daring and inventive writer.