Padgett Powell writes: 'Their conversation we may find it difficult to grasp much like they themselves. Coming to conclusions that don't conclude. To questions that have no answers. To positions that may not be finally so aimless. They disagree to agree. They are smart, not smart; fools, not fools.' Poignant, hilarious, opaque, diamond-clear, this strange little gem is sure to delight the thousands of devotees found by Powell's The Interrogative Mood.'I'd like to see some flying dogs.Are there flying dogs?Not that I know of. Seeing some would improve my mood tremendously, though.I suspect it would. Mine too.Cheer us right up, flying dogs.Raining cats and dogs.Like to see cats bouncing off cars.Why'd they call combat air battles "dogfights"?They wanted to see flying dogs too.'
Padgett Powell is a novelist who has taught writing at the University of Florida for over thirty years. His books include his dazzling first novel Edisto and most recently The Interrogative Mood.
Utterly intriguing
Grazia - Hannah Marriott
Powell continues to rebel against convention... displaying a benevolent misanthropy and a juvenile silliness ...Powell holds a mirror up to what we have become and what we have lost, giving voice to a yearning that avoids sentimentality
Metro
Much like its predecessor, You & I is that most radical of rare beasts: a dazzlingly brilliant, thoroughly readable, properly avant-garde novel
Dazed & Confused - Stuart Hammond
This book is a rare thing: experimental writing with powerful narrative drive. I finished it feeling quieted - by its melancholic probing - and exhilarated by its comic style.
John Jeremiah Sullivan, author of Pulphead
With typical swaggering genius and ribald wit, Padgett Powell in You & I delivers two loquacious, Godot-style philosophers who swap lies and pontificate on sex and liquor while offering perspicacious insights into the absurdity of human nature.
Vanity Fair
Braver, tougher, smarter than most of the fiction supposedly pushing the envelope. Why? Because it actually means something.
Gary Shteyngart, author of Super Sad True Love Story