Root

root (or "/") begins with a mock tech manual replete with ridiculous acronyms regarding the Information Systems Integration Structure (ISIS) operating system: proceeds to a flurry of prose-cartoons: and concludes with the doomed romance of Blood and Night: two tragic-comic ghosts in the Machine.

What people (no one in particular: just folk) are saying about root: Anyone who reads and re-reads / will be drawn certainly: inexorably: hypnotically to the same conclusion of this astonished reader: Adam Engel wears a hat. David Robinson: Reader of great books and Writer of bad checks translated into a dozen languages. Reading / made me want to leap up and shout for joy! Which I did. And broke my ankle. I ll be more careful next time. My doctors warned my next encounter with this author could be fatal. What do they know? I must go on: I can go on: I will go on reading Adam Engel. Jennifer Gonzalez-Blitz: Artist: Reader: and Co-Author of her own life. Adam Engel is the real thing: the greatest prose-cartoonist since Charles Baudelaire or was it Charles Bukowski? Whatever. Engel is the realest thing in American letters today which ain t no big thing: but it s some kind of thing: better than no thing. Isn t it? Aviva Shapiro: Producer and Ringmaster of Le Cirque d Or Blah, blah, blah. Bleh, bleh, bleh. Blurb, blurb, blurb. Eric Conliffe: Beater of his own drum and Author of several award- winning blurbs."