Ben, a gay textbook writer, wants only to retire. However, in this riff on the Faust legend, Caleb, his red-haired publisher, tempts him to write just one more series--a series that instead of showing life in the United States as a 50s sitcom, will show it as it really is, complete with racism, homosexuality, abortion, random murder, political corruption, and all the other joys of our time.

Caleb, with the help of Eleanor, an editor he forces on Ben, pushes Ben ruthlessly to complete the series. Caleb even seems to dangle Eleanor's sixteen year-old son, David, in front of Ben's eyes as additional temptation, but one that Ben knows he must resist.

When the series finally comes out on the market, it appears to be a failure until it is banned in West Virginia, and then in Mississippi and Utah. In the resultant publicity (soon followed by high sales), Ben finds himself first barricaded in his house by outraged right wing picketers, and then driven to a bonfire of his books. His life has become a chaos from which he must find an escape.

Eugene Hall has had a long career in teaching and in writing textbooks for students learning English as a foreign language, rather like Ben in this novel (though not in any of the countries mentioned by Ben). In addition to textbooks, he has dabbled in poetry, fiction, painting, and architecture. Currently he lives in the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C.

My boy? I was Caleb’s boy? "You must be drunk," I said severely. "I’d really appreciate it if you left. We don’t have anything more to say to each other."

He laughed gleefully. "Oh, yes we do, we have a lot more to say to each other. Hell, you haven’t even asked what my good news is."

I hesitated for a second or two, wanting him only to be gone, but I finally gave in to my curiosity enough to ask, "All right, so what is this good news of yours?"

After a dramatic pause, he brought out proudly, "We’ve been banned in West Virginia."

I just stared at him incredulously. Then it was my turn to laugh. "West Virginia? West Virginia? Why the hell is that good news?"

"It’s the break I’ve been waiting for. Can’t you see how important it is?"

"No, I can’t. I’ve never heard that there were a lot of people in West Virginia who had to study English as a foreign language. Except of course all those who speak West Virginian, which I suppose can be classed as a foreign language."

"No, no, Ben, don’t be such a goddamn snob. It’s the mileage we can get out of it. The publicity, Ben," he added as though I were some kind of idiot.

"You’re going to promote being banned? A scandal? Is that the kind of publicity you think we need?"

"Yes, that’s it exactly! In a week everybody in the country--hell, all over the world--will have heard about American English NOW!. All the civil liberties kooks will be screaming about free speech, and all the born-agains will be screaming about family values. Can’t you see it? We might even get a book-burning or two organized. That’s a hell of a lot better use for a few books than all those worthless complimentary copies we sent out."

"And how are you going to make a mountain out of the little molehill of a minor scandal?"

"Minor? Hell, Ben, it won’t be minor by the time I turn on the Corporation’s publicity spigot. Our newspapers and TV and radio stations’ll build this into a major scandal." (I should have known that the Corporation owned chunks of the media too; it might be worth it for me to buy some shares of stock in the Corporation so I could get an annual report that showed me what other endeavors they’d infiltrated.) "I’m sure our people in New York are already feeding information to Rush Limbaugh and Gordon Liddy and Ollie North. When they come out with a nice heavy, vicious attack against American English NOW!, their audience will be screaming for our blood."