Pulp Poem of the Week

I filled
my mouth
with fish
and thought
of Kafka.

Roger Zelazny
The Dead Man's Brother
c. 1971

Footnote: Roger Zelazny, The Dead Man's Brother (c. 1971)

The following sentence appears on page 206 of Roger Zelazny's The Dead Man's Brother (Hard Case Crime #52):

"You know why I sent for you./?" he said/asked.

Any theories as to what on earth is going on here?

Book Review: Roger Zelazny, The Dead Man's Brother (c. 1971)

The hero of The Dead Man's Brother, Ovid Wiley, is an art dealer and blowhard who has a rare genetic predisposition for luck in the face of death. His story might have been interesting if Roger Zelazny (who ordinarily was a science-fiction writer, after all), had focused his attention on Wiley's remarkable gift for survival. Instead, this detail is an afterthought in the novel's serpentine, borderline-nonsensical plot involving the CIA, the Vatican, and Brazilian revolutionaries. The fact that I forced myself to finish reading this dreck indicates that I, too, have a genetic gift, though mine seems to have something to do with masochism. Grade: F