SOURCE: "The Heart of Madness," in Los Angeles Times Book Review, July 17, 1994, pp. 2, 8.

Rechy is a novelist. In the review below, he provides a laudatory assessment of Headhunter.

This exceptional novel [Headhunter] opens with a smashing paragraph that elevates a reader's expectations:

On a winter's day, while a blizzard raged through the streets of Toronto, Lilah Kemp inadvertently set Kurtz free from Page 92 of Heart of Darkness. Horror-stricken, she tried to force him back between the covers. The escape took place at the Metropolitan Toronto Reference Library, where Lilah Kemp sat reading beside the rock pool. She had not even said come forth, but there Kurtz stood before her, framed by the woven jungle of cotton trees and vines that passed for botanic atmosphere.

Lilah is a schizophrenic, an outpatient in a psychiatric treatment center. She roams Toronto while pushing a baby carriage containing a copy of Wuthering...