Don Bapst

The Hanged Man Don Bapst

Fascinated by the haunting images of the earliest known tarot cards, PhD candidate Glen Harrison is determined to research their secular origins. But when Glen proposes his thesis, his Art History professors are less than encouraging. The tarot, they say, is merely decorative, not ?true? art. Unsure about his own ability to produce a dissertation, Glen begins to wonder if they aren?t right. Perhaps his attraction to the tarot lies not in their artistic qualities but in their distance from academic associations. Floundering, he scrambles to find a new direction, when a series of seemingly chance encounters and random finds takes him down a new and terrifying path. Perhaps there is something more to the tarot than he has allowed himself to believe. The clues he stumbles upon in the forgotten neighborhoods and hidden libraries of pre-911 New York lead Glen on an inevitable journey to the most hidden reaches of West Africa, where a mystery as dark and ancient as the cards themselves unfurls..