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.