Fiction. First published in 1989, this long-neglected cult classic features revisions, and a new afterword, by the author.

"A novel as mysterious, beautiful, sad and frightening as contemporary American childhood itself—and, fortunately, a good deal funnier. Bradfield's California is haunted by vast primordial Lovecraftian forces—death, sex, credit cards, Mom—which threaten always to emerge from their ancient hiding places and engulf the world and the narrator, eight-year old Phillip and his preteen Karamazov friends. Those who think they know all about California and Oedipal drives will here discover the true extent of their ignorance. The thing is indescribable—violent, hallucinatory, comic and incredibly well written. Scott Bradfield has not simply staked out new literary terrain here, he has mapped and colonized an entire new plant."—Michael Chabon

"If you spot it, grab it."—J.G. Ballard