Leslie Scalapino. Dahlia’s Iris (2003) 213 pp. [tpo]
Publisher’s description: “Is it a detective novel? A dream? A political statement? A spiritual meditation? And which events form its story? … [T]hree detectives investigate the grisly deaths of Dahlia Winter’s husband and two Hispanic boys, fallen from buildings, in a future-time San Francisco. Continually recalling the plots of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Terminator 2, and Blade Runner, the novel colonizes American popular culture from within, as though no story, regardless of how alien, were proof against its own uncontainable life. Based on a conception of the Tibetan written form of the Secret Autobiography, Dahlia’s Iris creates a time-space in which sensation, action, thought, and memory cohabit the reader’s present, revealing inner and outer to be the other’s source and inversion …”