Louse is loosely based on the final days of Howard Hughes' empire. It takes place in the penthouse of a casino overlooking the vastness of the American desert. The novel details the furthest extremes of Hughes' insanity: his obsession with hygiene, his complete isolation from the outside world, his mania for absolute power. But Hughes is just a starting point for a startlingly original, hilarious, and disturbing debut novel.

The main character is Herman Q. Louse, the attendant to the Hughes-figure, "Poppy", responsible for maintaining the sterile environment as he feeds his boss, administers various medicines, and performs a series of assorted and often bizarre tasks. Through Louse's eyes, we're first introduced to the completely enclosed, artificial world that Louse and his hundreds of co-workers inhabit, a world reminiscent of Orwell's 1984, only this one is already pulling apart at its invisible seams. Louse has no memory of his life in the outside world, but suddenly he is plagued by flashes of a life that's unfamiliar to him. Meanwhile, he is involuntarily pulled into a conspiracy to overthrow Poppy. Simultaneously, however, Louse begins to receive generous promotions. Perhaps the resistance faction he's been drafted into is in fact controlled by Poppy, perhaps to subvert other, legitimate resistance groups. Or perhaps he is controlling all the groups simply for his own entertainment.

These are only a few of the carefully constructed layers of suspense. The book is laced wit humor, insight, and remarkably dynamic, masterful prose from which rise moments of unsuspected, breathtaking beauty.