<em>From a Broken Bottle Traces of Perfume Still Emanate: Volumes 1-3</em> collects the first three installments-<em>Bedouin Hornbook</em>, <em>Djbot Baghostus's Run</em>, and Atet A.D.-of Nathaniel Mackey's genre-defying work of fiction. A project that began over thirty years ago, <em>From a Broken Bottle</em> is an epistolary novel that unfolds through N.'s intricate letters to the mysterious Angel of Dust. Unexpected, profound happenings take place as N. delves into music and art and the goings-on of his transmorphic Los Angeles-based jazz ensemble, in which he is a composer and instrumentalist. This triple-set book opens in July 1978 with a dream of a haunting Archie Shepp solo, and closes in September 1982 in a parallactic studio recording session on a glass-bottomed boat borne aloft by the music. The fourth volume of Mackey's novel, <em>Bass Cathedral</em>-also available from New Directions-was chosen by <em>The New York Times</em> as one of 100 Notable Books of 2008. But that it didn't end there.