Having begun writing in a period that emphasized the sociopolitical novel, the female bildungsroman, and works defined by their ethnic voice, C. E. Poverman has, in his short-story collections and novels, created a distinct body of work in late-twentieth-century American literature. His fiction, which chronicles the journey of the individual human consciousness through the world, is notable for its nuanced mimesis of the dense texture of the interior life and personal relationships, erotic and familial. "Fiction is the transformation and invention of feelings and images," he said in an interview with Christopher J. Patyk for The Arizona Daily Wildcat (18 April 1989), "Nothing is as fascinating as what goes on between people." Even when he inhabits the consciousness of a down-and-outer, a working-class female, or a nonwhite character, Poverman remains the ultimate maverick, unlinkable to any easy discussion of larger issues othern than the simply human.

In Poverman's hands the...