Highly regarded Seattle novelist Matt Ruff is joined in conversation this evening by Paul Constant, book editor at The Stranger, occasioned by publication of Matt Ruff's arresting new novel, The Mirage (HarperCollins). "Genre buster Ruff takes the reader through the looking glass into a world where a union of benevolent Muslim state (the U.A.S.) guards against Christian fundamentalist terrorists trying to spread fear and unrest ... Beneath this dubious verisimilitude lies a truth that gives Ruff's work a sharp satiric bite ... As the plot thickens, the ideas keep coming, with Ruff revising, among other things, the gay rights movement, David Koresh, and Timothy McVeigh. This is both entertaining and provocative, exactly what the best popular fiction should be." – Publishers Weekly. Matt Ruff's other books include Fool on the Hill, Sewer, Gas & Electric, Set This House in Order, and Bad Monkeys. This should be a lively one.