"The Destructors," though, is not an anti-story; it has both form and meaning. Unlike most modern fiction of the kind which comments on the atomization of society and the fragmentation of the self, "The Destructors" is not disintegrative in its technique. It is difficult, in fact, to think of a contemporary story that makes anywhere near as richly meaningful an artistic statement, that is more highly and tightly wrought by means of narratively direct, straightforward, unpretentious technique. And as to meaning, the story is not absurdist, although it is, perhaps, within hailing distance of the Absurd. The story comes far nearer to standing in the tradition of the Christian grotesque, a tradition which sees man staring into the face of a devil immanent and active in the world, not into Nothingness. In this tradition, the dualities of human experience—mind/ body, heaven/hell, permanence/change, innocence...