The Wrestler's Cruel Study

Two gorillas abduct a beautiful maiden from her Manhattan apartment; her fiancé, a celebrity wrestler, seeks her recovery. Michael Marmaduke is a humble Jersey bodybuilder until wrestling trainer Primus Muldoon transforms the gentle blond giant into Marduk the Magnificent. Michael's gentleness becomes his gimmick; Primus excels at transforming Nietzsche's "bungled and botched" into extravagant heroes and villains, at manipulating images to satisfy a mass-market culture. Rose White's kidnapping, arranged by her malevolent twin Violet, forces Michael out of his cocoon of scripted dualism. Now he must initiate action; now he must think; now the pussycat must become a tiger (exactly what Violet wants). Guided and misguided by Jack Molay, a mysterious old pedant, and by Deep Rat, Violet's sinister emissary, Michael confronts a bewildering variety of physical and intellectual challenges: fights with hybrid men/beasts, rap sessions with the Disputants, street gangs whose beliefs are grounded in early Christian heresies.