THE BURNT ORANGE HERESY

Willeford's heresy is a curiosity-catching and attention-getting story about the art world and the superimposition of hoaxes achieved by James Figueras, a critic who will become an enormous success by the time he's 35, and one Jacques Debirue, the greatest modern painter since Duchamp, a NihilistSurrealist. However none of Debirue's paintings have ever been for sale and actually Figueras becomes the first American to interview the great man, now in retirement in Florida, eating TV dinners and spending his evenings at drive-in movies. Only Figueras is privileged to see the empty canvas which is the Nihilist-Surrealist's lifework-nonwork and from then on. . . . Willeford seems to have written a good many other novels (paperbacks?) and he remembers he has a story to tell giving it the benefit of some humor and a good many surprises along the way.