Now it can be told: confessions of a blurbomaniac.

One of the best things about this job--aside from the privilege of defending Cardinal Ratzinger's position in editorial debate--is paging through the book catalogues we receive from publishers. I have a fetishistic attachment to books-- if I can't read it at least I can hold it in my sweaty little palms for a minute--and letting me order books "for review" is a little like letting Ronald Reagan order weapons systems or Elizabeth Taylor husbands or Ross Perot rescue missions. I will not be denied.

Leafing through the catalogues can also be entertaining, especially the brief synopses of the latest novels with their angst-ridden, sexually tormented protagonists. I'm as much for angst and sexual torment as the next guy, but squeezing these status markers into a paragraph or two makes for a certain lack of subtlety when appealing to the prospective buyer's basest instincts. Doubtless these precis are composed by overworked, underpaid, and sexually harassed minions, and the authors should not be held strictly accountable. Indeed, these blurbs are a venerable genre, and when they are accompanied by the usual small, black-and-white picture of the author looking both ethereal and as if she'd been sucking on a lemon the total impression induces merriment. The biographical tags strain for similar effects, and usually read something like, "Alexander Blaze, a native Oklahoman, studied at Bennington and the Sorbornne, and now lives in New York." Or they live in New York and London, or New York and Istanbul, or New York and Putney, Vermont. Of course I'm jealous. I live in New York and Hooterville, Connecticut, but I haven't written a novel.

Below I have excerpted actual book blurbs from a number of recent publishers' catalogues. I hope you enjoy them. In the interest of not arousing the enmity of the authors of the books described I have made up alternative titles to suit each blurb. This is meant to be mischievous, and I trust that faithful Commonweal readers will understand the controversies and cast of characters to which I gently allude in these fake titles.

"Surrounded by a circle of writers and radical thinkers, the young utopians hope to launch a revolutionary way of living. Over the year we see their ideal of personal and political liberation shattered .... "(Dan and Marilyn Quayle: The Untold Story.)

"It is to this green, summery, weekendish Atlantic outpost that the [female protagonist]...come[s] in search of relief from the cruelties of Manhattan. Enter a well-remembered figure from her past....the world's most heartbreaking man." (Mario Says, "No"--Again. )

"A stunning novel, brimming with romance and political intrigue...a fire storm then ensues, fueled by the enmity that has always raged between the town's leading families....at its vortex are the protagonists." (Lies? Lies? Lies? A Cardinal Blackie Ryan Novel.) (Just kidding! kidding! kidding!)

A "thinking reader's Jackie Collins....Only an insider could bring to life the dazzling and treacherous high-stakes players of New York, Downing Street, and Capitol Hill...an explosive mix of sex, violence, and ruthless ambition that brilliantly captures the behind-the-scenes world of today's power elite." (Now It Can Be Told: The Real Commonweal Story.)

"From flop pads in New York's East Village to the Bhagwan Rajneesh's sex commune in India, from Provincetown to Santa Cruz, he tries to recapture contentment, and invariably finds its opposite." (Frank McConnell: A Media Critic's Life.)

"Which all adds up to a subtle and unnerving inquiry into one marriage's descent into crime and fear...an acute and moving portrait of what can happen when a couple become tired of the life they share and jump at the first chance for change, no matter what the price--deceit, venality, adultery, violence." (The Baumanns at Home.)

"An African-American temptress who dabbles in voodoo and can make herself invisible; a dwarfish, shotgun-toting troglodyte who trains killer dogs, and a pouting personal assistant who moonlights as a sex slave....Replete with a live body packed in a coffin, a sinister cave with a secret entrance, and the most excruciating doctor's visit ever recorded." (What Bishops Talk About When They Talk About Women. )

"Fixed in a landscape as strange and as familiar as today's headlines, [the novel] reveals a world...in which certainty and trust increasingly give way to ambiguity and paranoia...gripping, mysterious, resonant--a novel in which the intractable conflict between oppressor and the oppressed is mirrored by one man and one woman's attempt to connect." (You're Next: My Life Behind the Cheese Counter at Zabar's.)

"Determined to discover the reason for [his mentor's suicide], Andrew travels to Jerusalem, where a highly respected Israeli archaeologist shows him the skeleton of a crucified man. On its skull are indentations that might have been made by a crown of thorns, and between its ribs is a mark apparently made by a spear." (Does Gore Vidal Know Something We Don't? See Irving Malin, page 38.)

Look for our new catalogue in the spring, including the shocking new releases, John Garvey Votes, Strong Men Faint. and Richard Alleva's Camera Angles I Might Have Missed.