Crafted out of language by turns eloquent, humorous, sensual, and obscene, and full of vividly rendered depictions of low-life bars, office politics, and hobo camps, here are Vollmann"s familiar but ever surprising characters-the seekers, the vigilantes, the hypocrites, the street prostitutes. He has woven their stories into a vivid and unforgettable novel about the eerie paradoxes of possession and loss.