There has been much talk of late about how the continuing financial turmoil will find expression in the arts. Will the literature of this depression match the quality of that created in the 1930s?Impossible to précis its narrative, Palumbo's story weaves and curves its way around the adventures of Tomas, a young man ensconced in a world of wealth, privilege and corruption. Like Candide and Gulliver before him, Tomas's adventures will startle the reader's imagination, yet linger in her mind. What seems grotesque, even impossible, has already happened . For excess of imagination, passion, outrage, death and love, greed and vice, often provide a clearer view of life.