Supermodel

Epic poems need epic heroes--divine, fantastic creatures, whose larger than life exploits project the spirit of an age--and now David Breskin has bequeathed our celebrity-obsessed era its very own form-fitting Supermodel.

Loosely inspired by the story of tsunami survivor Petra Nemcova, the heroine of Supermodel is an outsized force of nature: fiercely competitive, intellectually curious, emotionally wounded, resolutely moral, and of course, ravishingly attractive--a globe-trotting innocent who exudes sexuality in every way . . . except the most obvious. As she literally clings to life, her story is revealed in a series of flashbacks which wing us from Middle East to Wild West, desert to tropics, country to city--all vividly described, in potent couplets, as paradises found and lost.

Breskin peppers this dark comedy with unsettling wordplay, shrewd social commentary, and a reporter's acute eye for the facts of life: his virtuosic writing matches the breathless pace and rich complexity of his heroine's travails. But even as Breskin relates his supermodel's tale, his story is matched by strangely salient scrolls of "found poetry" culled from web sites. This new feat of literary dovetailing creates a sublime surprise: the first epic poem of the Internet Age.