In his "best achievement to date" (Harold Bloom), National Book Award- winner Roger Shattuck gives us a "deeply learned, highly intelligent, and beautifully written" (New York Times) study of human curiosity versus the taboo, from Adam and Eve to the Marquis de Sade to biotechnology...
An examination of the meaning of moral responsibility in literature and our everyday lives suggests that we live in a violated world that dismisses taboos.