The hilarious introduction to A Fictional History of the United States quickly and sadly underlines why we seem to keep reliving events from which we should be able to protect ourselves. As editors T Cooper and Adam Mansbach point out through their wonderful selection of stories, the U.S.A. is one ultra contradictory place that can leave even the most brilliant scratching their heads while the high school drop out understandsÑand vice versa. The chose articles by seventeen of America's finest writers covering the emergence of the country from 2000 B.C.E. to 2010 A.D.

Paul La Farge's "The Discovery of America" alerts us to a few alternatives to Christopher Columbus who might have been blown off course to American shores a thousand years before the tired Italian and his Spanish fleeT Some of those discoverers were Icelandic, Danish, Basque, Phoenician, Japanese, Hindu, Welsh, Arabian and Chinese.

So much for that mystery.

If you'll notice, part of this book's title is "with huge chunks missing." Writer T Cooper proves why when he interviews Charles Lindbergh, Jr. several decades after his kidnapping and death as child. Was Lindbergh's father involved? Was the F.B.I. complicit in the kidnapping and cover up? Was Bruno Hauptmann guilty? Innocent? Somewhat guilty? Somewhat innocent? Cooper investigates one of New Jersey's longest running cases in "The Story That Refuses To Die".

Amy Bloom's "April 9, 1924" delivers many parallels to America's presenT After decades of migration from Europe and Russia, the U.S.A. is brimming with people of many languages that it just doesn't understand. Amy Bloom's portrait of one young girl's assimilation into American society is exactly the thing that makes her differenT

Benjamin Weissman cuts us a cannibalistic peek at life on the frontier in "West." Don't buy that fairy tale that women are the weaker sex that Hollywood's been peddling for decades. Weissman just might have given us one of the "huge missing chunks" Ðeven if it is a century before the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Only Ron Kovic, best known for "Born On The Fourth Of July" could sum up the Vietnam War in five and half pages. Check out "The Recruiters". It's an acid blood stained nightmare.

Keith Knight's cartoon exposition of "The Harlem Globetrotters" left me laughing enough to back for two more reads.

When you're in the bookstore and the collection jumps off the shelf at you, check out Knight's cartoon. The rest of the book is as excellent as that is funny. T Cooper and Adam Mansbach have truly compiled "A Fictional History of the United States with huge chunks missing."