Time Lapse — Alvin Greenberg

Walter Job, college professor and family man, has undeniable talents. The professorial life is a natural for him, but so is the art of murderand it's so much more remunerative. Outwardly serene, he pursues both vocations, has an affair, and avoids pursuit. Inwardly, his life comes more and more undone.

The character of Walter Job is keenly etched on a mirror that reflects his search for what drives him and our violence-prone society. This literate, layered, intriguing novel is a dark tour de force for Alvin Greenberg.

"What's wonderful about Alvin Greenberg is that he never steps into the same set of narrative conventions twice. In Time Lapse, he appropriates and manipulates those of crime fiction, academic satire, tryst novel, and more to deeply impressive effect, turning the story of a fastidious, contemplative, amoral professional hitman (and professor of modernist literature) into a metafiction about the nature of writing and a philosophical exploration about the nature of contingency, time's passing, and death in our culture of violence. The result is both handsome and haunting, a challenge to us all to think about our shadow selves and a pure plain pleasure to read."

Lance Olsen, author of Girl Imagined By Chance