The time: an entire night in Montreal. The place: a narrow alley where two stubborn drivers come to a preposterous impasse. The cast: a marvelous blend of misfits-Pelzic, the immigrant cabdriver whose ambition is to pull a retzic (bonanza) by throwing himself against moving vehicles and thereby milking some insurance company; Levin, the real estate fat cat whose tenants are pinpricking him mad with inane complaints; a tipsy millionaire; and a girl or two. The book: Shmucks, a brutally sardonic, brilliantly funny novel of confrontation and alienation.

Seymour Blicker is presently recognized as one of Canada's most important novelists, author of three highly acclaimed works of fiction: Blues Chased a Rabbit; Shmucks; and The Last Collection, which was published in the United States in 1977. Now living in Canada with his wife and four children, he recently spent a year in Santa Monica, California, completing work on the film version of Shmucks and working on a new novel.