By the Shores of Gitchee Gumee - Hardcover

"Did you know that the blood fluke lives in a state of permanent copulation, inside a chicken?" asks Maud Slivenowicz, the 19-year old daughter of Evangeline Slivenowicz, who is the central character in Tama Janowitz's novel The Shores of Gitchee Gumee. If you think that's shocking, try this one on for size: Tama Janowitz, author of The Male Cross-Dresser Support Group and Slaves of New York, has written a novel that was inspired by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "Song of Haiwatha." Maud is one of five children, who are sired by five different fathers, living in a crappy little trailer down by the Gitchee Gumee. Before it's all over, the trailer rolls into the lake, a kidnapping occurs, and the whole kit and caboodle end up in Southern California. Janowitz is in fine fettle here. But you can blame it on Longfellow.

Janowitz, described by Gordon Burn as a member of the American literary bratpack alongside Brett Easton Ellis, is the author of Slaves of New York, A Cannibal in Manhattan, American Dad and The Male Cross-Dresser Support Group. She lives in New York.