"Darkly comic...satirical... lyrical...remarkable." --The New Yorker
"Once every few years a novel will fill me with an almost magical joy...Everything in Spencer's latest book--his slightly surreal plot, stunningly drawn protagonist, and brilliant use of language--produces in me that feeling of deep personal gratification. Men in Black is narrated, for the most part, by Sam Holland, a literary novelist with a sideline of writing quickie, pseudonymous books (An Intelligent Woman's Guide to Pro Football, Traveling With Your Pet) to pay the bills. When Holland writes Visitors from Above no one suspects that this is largely made-up primer on UFOs will become an enormous bestseller. At bottom, Men in Black is the story of one man trying to tell the truth, but it is also the story of a marriage, an angry kid, media hype, and a country whose identity has become hopelessly fractured...Profound ideas are interwoven with a story that is not only thoroughly engrossing, but very funny as well."--Los Angeles Times Book ReviewAmazon.comThe funniest novel to date from an author whose previous obsession was, well, obsession, Men in Black is the story of a Jewish, 40-year-old novelist who writes a puffed-up primer on UFOs, under a pseudonym he happens to share with the author of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion." Meanwhile his teenage son is AWOL as a result of his father's sexual transgression. A hilarious send-up of our media culture and a powerful exploration of family life.
