The Elliott Bay Book Company

I gazed out my window on the sea of dark clouds as my shaking seatjiggled the image into double vision; and I pictured the flat, geometrically dividedwestern landscapes below, wondering why anyone still bothered to travel in thiscookie-cutter country. What was the use of visiting identical reproductions of thesame Wal-Mart or adding new encounters of equally streamlined mentality to theroster? As far as I was concerned, everything had been shorn from the same cloth, woven for years in the drab bungalows of suburban North America. --from PacificAgonyDepressed, cynical, and subversive, East Coaster Reginald Fortiphton has beenbrought to Seattle by a West Coast publishing company that wants him to write aguide to the American Northwest. His job is to travel, on their dime, from Eugene, Oregon, to Vancouver, shining an admiring light on the region--which the publishersfeel has been neglected by the New York publishing monopoly. Pacific Agony is hisironic attempt to fufill his assignment. To ensure that the project goes as planned, the very respectable Narcissa Whitman Applegate--notable member of theWillamette-Columbia Historical Legion and the Daughters of the Oregon TrailHistorical Committee (and named after a nineteenth century missionary who wasfamously killed by Oregon's Nez Perc? Indians)--is asked to annotate the manuscript.Her notes at the bottom of the page become progressively more outraged as thealienated Reginald's mock travel narrative skewers the region with mercilesspolitical observations--while he spirals into a depressive mania.This acidic, satirical novel hilariously eviscerates contemporary American culture at the sametime that it exposes some of the darker motivations of American middle-classliberalism.