[Mulligan Stew] is a crazy quilt of popular culture, "sub-literary" genres, and unusual narrative voices. Its basic story of a novelist writing his most recent work is interlaced with all variety of playful, parodic, and fictive allusions. Eventually this motley production exemplifies Sorrentino's main concern: "Surfaces, I'm interested in surfaces," he remarked in a 1974 interview. "For me, life is right in front of you. Mysterious because it is not hidden. I'm interested in surfaces and flashes, episodes." While many surface glints and flashes in Mulligan Stew spring from popular forms and suggest the "folk mind," many also spring from more sophisticated sources. The end product is more than a mere collection of superficialities: it is a metafiction that is more vital and accessible than much serious contemporary fiction, and more mimetic than "popular" formulaic art.

The overall framework for Mulligan Stew, however, is a conventional one, revealed through...