This fictional story, rather unlike many of Kurt’s others, tells a complete story—from beginning to end—and includes themes and subjects that later appear in The Omasters, which indicates this work is preliminary to the unfinished book Kurt and Walter (Clifford) Barney initiated. A main character, Rrrose Selevy (an intentionally misspelled version of Marcel Duchamp’s alter ego, Rrose Selavy) has a prominent role, and speaking with a lisp, she imparts secret knowledge to the “author,” Johnny Menotti, twin brother of Jim, who has died after racing his Triumph sports car over a cliff by the Pacific. Some action takes place at the Lilly Laboratory (a thinly veiled reference to John and Toni Lily’s dolphin research facility) and references to the masons, the Arthurian legend of Gawain and the Green Knight and Mozart’s Magic Flute round out the tale’s presciently feminist narrative arc about the coming change in male succession.
