Mid-19th-century Philadelphian surgical assistant Edward Fenzil falls under the sway of his mentor, a collector of medical curiosities, and the writer Edgar Allan Poe, both of whose powerful wills challenge his sense of identity as he struggles with his own malevolent doppelganger.

"[Norman Lock's fiction] shimmers with glorious language, fluid rhythms, and complex insights." NPR "Lock writes some of the most deceptively beautiful sentences in contemporary fiction. Beneath their clarity are layers of cultural and literary references, profound questions about loyalty, race, the possibility of social progress, and the nature of truth . . . to create something entirely newan American fable of ideas." Shelf Awareness "The Wreckage...