The Interrogative Mood: A Novel? - Softcover

“Captivating and often glorious.” (New York Times Book Review, Paperback Row)

“Can you picture the rabble-rousing literary offspring of Flannery O’Connor and Donald Barthelme? Does the prospect of reading a lawlessly lyrical, comic novel composed entirely in The Interrogative Mood pique your curiosity?” (Vanity Fair)

“[Powell] has a rare ear for dialect and dialogue, a dedication to new ways of making words jump and dance and catch fire.” (New York Times Magazine)

“Offhanded, witty, original, and [an] altogether unique book. . . . Here, he’s less a writer in the school of John Casey or Peter Taylor than he is a member of the badass gang of Barry Hannah. The Interrogative Mood, serious and laughable, extends this legacy.” (Rick Moody)

“A supreme literary stunt.” (Jonathan Lethem)

“[A] peculiar and mind-popping experience. . . . Most novels take us away from ourselves, into the lives and minds of other people. The Interrogative Mood goes boldly in the other direction ― and really, wouldn’t you like to talk about yourself?” (St. Petersburg Times)

“Hypnotic...Jazzy meditations that wrestle with life’s important questions.” (The New Yorker)

“Intimate and hilarious―the yearning is as powerful as all that is evoked and revealed in this precise and beautiful novel.” (Amy Hempel)

“A delightful stylistic flight, and as engrossing as staying up late at summer camp considering every goofy or brilliant question that comes into your head. Padgett Powell is one of the best writers in America, and one of the funniest, too.” (Ian Frazier)

“This book will sear the unlucky volumes shelved on either side of it. How it doesn’t, itself, combust in flames is a mystery to me. Padgett Powell has given us a wake-up call.” (Jonathan Safran Foer)