American Genius, a Comedy

A former historian is spending time in a residential home - but is it an artist's retreat, a sanatorium, or a psychiatric hospital? In hypnotic and digressive prose, Tillman's narrator spins tales of her life while ruminating on her many and varied preoccupations: chair design, the Manson family, the Zulu alphabet, the death of a pet, family trauma, loneliness - and above all, skin and the meaning of 'sensitivity' in contemporary society.