ademic satire and burlesque of the imagination in which "spiritual entrepreneurism" passes for higher education, and an unexpected hero (an adjunct writing instructor), finding he is "powerless to stop the relentless slaughter of well-being," battles deceit and hypocrisy within the Creative Industrial Complex. Unlike anything else, The Creative Writers is a commedia dell'arte performance wrapped in a comic book. Written in lavish, exquisite prose, it is misanthropic, hallucinatory, and side-splittingly funny. A Norman Mailer or a Anthony Burgess would love this novel. Others may find it not at all nice.