THE VISIBLE WORLD By Mark Slouka Houghton Mifflin. 242 pp. $24 It is a rare thing for a novel to split open the illusion of narrative -- like one of those 17th- century anatomical drawings where the corpse helpfully holds back the flaps of his own stomach -- to reveal the underlying mechanics of ...
A Usable Past
THE VISIBLE WORLD By Mark Slouka Houghton Mifflin. 242 pp. $24 It is a rare thing for a novel to split open the illusion of narrative -- like one of those 17th- century anatomical drawings where the corpse helpfully holds back the flaps of his own stomach -- to reveal the underlying mechanics of ...