By the looks of things, a handful of contemporary writers are returning us to the wondrous days when novels - not movies - were the dominant narrative form. No longer are our best storytellers cowed by Hollywood (no relation) into producing elliptical, bloodless tomes that refuse to compete with more visceral media. Wesley Stace is unafraid to sauce his tale with a tangy dollop of vulgarity. No artless hack, Stace, like Marquez, Rushdie, Grass, and on these shores Irving, is a complete writer. In the library at noon and the whorehouse at midnight. Nabokov said that a writer's job is to enchant. Well, Wesley Stace wears the hat. Surrender yourself to MISFORTUNE and you will be in his spell. Or just stare at that author photo for a while.