detective, heartbroken, then turns to drinking and eventually knocks at a fictional author's door to tell his story. Notably, the final plot element is present only in some editions of the novel and is omitted from individual translations. Reception The novel has received only limited critical attention. It is featured in depth in a chapter in Stacy Olster's The Trash Phenomenon and in several academic publications by Sebastian M. Herrmann. Olster reads the novel in the context of postmodern cultural recycling and as commentary on a cultural shift away from text, stating, "For Beinhart, 'images have now replaced words as repositories of history' leading to a situation in which 'changes of history can be achieved by changes in imagery'." Herrmann lauds the novel's postmodern quality and its "diegetic and narrative games" and reads its central concern with the manipulation of political reality as indicative of an "epistemic panic" and, in consequence, as indicative of early forms of post-truth politics. Reviews focused mostly on the plot and were mixed. In The New York Times, Caryn James called the book "surprisingly flat", whereas Richard Eder in the Los Angeles Times praised it as a "funny, ingenious and outrageous political thriller". See also The Gulf War Did Not Take Place References 1993 American novels American political novels American satirical novels American novels adapted into films Gulf War fiction Nation Books books