By the Shores of Gitchee Gumee

"Did you know that the blood fluke lives in a state of permanent copulation, inside a chicken?" asks Maud Slivenowicz, the 19-year old daughter of Evangeline Slivenowicz, who is the central character in Tama Janowitz's novel The Shores of Gitchee Gumee . If you think that's shocking, try this one on for Tama Janowitz, author of The Male Cross-Dresser Support Group and Slaves of New York , has written a novel that was inspired by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "Song of Haiwatha." Maud is one of five children, who are sired by five different fathers, living in a crappy little trailer down by the Gitchee Gumee. Before it's all over, the trailer rolls into the lake, a kidnapping occurs, and the whole kit and caboodle end up in Southern California. Janowitz is in fine fettle here. But you can blame it on Longfellow.