Paul West, author of 16 previous novels, writes in language so vivid and so precise that the streets of 17th-century London leap off the page in all their smelly, filthy ambiance. Even the young Milton is a collection of smells, tastes, and textures over which a thick patina of fevered genius is laid. And Amaryllis herself--prostitute, first love, poetic muse--is more than what she seems, a fact that gives this slim volume an unexpected twist at the end.

Since the days of the Wild West, Doc Holliday and his contemporaries have been immortalized in our collective consciousness. In O.K., Paul West turns inside out our long-cherished assumptions about who these bold and deadly men were, using his chameleon-like ability to absorb larger-than-life figures and an historical era and make them his own. West displays here his masterful ability to transcend time and place in a characterization of Doc Holliday as timeless as the legendary man himself. Hailed by the Chicago Tribune as "possibly our finest living stylist in English" and considered "one of the most original talents in American fiction" by The New York Times Book Review, West proves yet again why praise for his work is so richly deserved.

Both men, pushed beyond their limits in the aftermath of 9.11, become symbols of what the I Ching calls "Brilliance Injured." With the exhilarating prose that has become his trademark, West evokes a world crippled by terror and fueled by rage.

The Immensity of the Here and Now is a moving and profound meditation on the tragedy of 9.11, spun out in a dialogue between these two men. West brings to the subject his unparalleled skill as an observer, his uncanny ability to fill the gap between the telling and the event, and the verbal alchemy that has made him one of the world's most critically acclaimed writers.