[In the following brief excerpt, Salamon praises portions of The Male Cross-Dresser Support Group for its wit and intelligence.]

Tama Janowitz has solved the casting problem for her latest novel, The Male Cross-Dresser Support Group. She has written and directed a film version, conceived as a promotional gimmick.

Without having seen the film but having read the book, I strongly recommend the film. It's only 40 seconds long, an appropriate amount of time to spend with Ms. Janowitz's ruminations about her heroine's periods, her electrolysis, her hair and—I'm not kidding—ethics and morality in the late 20th century.

This time Ms. Janowitz's main character is a charmless creature named Pamela, who finds salvation for her dreary existence by taking unofficial custody of a young boy and taking him on the road. For Pamela and Ms. Janowitz life is one absurdist joke after another, strung together by the author's philosophizing.

For instance: “To find a head in the road might be a quirk of fate, but to find a head in the road and then to stumble upon the scene of one's father and stepmother's demise—obviously some larger psychosis or neurosis is involved. But hey, so what? I mean, who the hell actually cares? Life is short and psychoanalysis is long. In the end the only cure is death. In the meantime, as my mother always told me, the main point of existence was to have fun and grow as a human being.”

With Ms. Janowitz, insipid memories are always being sparked by unbelievable events. Yet here and there some real intelligence and wit emerge. So one suspects it's deliberate. She wants to be the Proust for pinheads.