the last book I ever read (Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay: A Novel, excerpt nineteen)

from The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay: A Novel by Michael Chabon:

“How are you?” Joe asked him. “How is business?”

“A pointed question, as ever, from the mouths of you two. What can I tell you. Business is not good. In fact, it’s very, very bad. As if television was not problem enough. Now we have hordes of Baptist lunatics down in Alabama, or some goddamned place, making big piles of comic books and setting them on fire because they are an offense to Jesus or the U.S. flag. Setting them on fire! Can you believe it? What did we fight the war for, if when it’s over they’re going to be burning books in the streets of Alabama? Then this Dr. Fredric Stick-Up-His-Ass Wertham, with that book of his. Now we have the Senate committee coming to town … you heard about that?”

“I heard.”

“They served me,” Sammy said.

“You got subpoenaed?” Anapol stuck out his lip.

“I didn’t get subpoenaed.”

“An oversight,” Joe suggested.