Possibly he has schizophrenia: the novel's narrative is intermittently incoherent (particularly at its end), the protagonist has memories of a stay in a mental hospital, and his perception of reality and the passages of time sometimes differ from those of other characters. He wears only one sandal, shoe, or boot, as do characters in two other Delany novels and one short story: Mouse in Nova (1968), Hogg in Hogg (1995), and Roger in "We, in Some Strange Power's Employ Move on a Rigorous Line" (1967). The novel's protagonist is "the Kid" (sometimes "Kidd"), a drifter who has partial amnesia: he can't remember either his own name or those of his parents, though he knows his mother was an American Indian. The few people left in Bellona struggle with survival, boredom, and each other. Gangs roam the nighttime streets, their members hidden within holographic projections of gigantic insects or mythological creatures.
Buildings burn for days, but are never consumed, while others burn and later show no signs of damage. Street signs and landmarks shift constantly, while time appears to contract and dilate. One day a red sun swollen to hundreds of times its normal size rises to terrify the populace, then retreats across the sky to set on the same horizon. Inexplicable events punctuate the novel: One night the perpetual cloud cover parts to reveal two moons in the sky. People enter and leave by crossing a bridge on foot. The city of Bellona is severely damaged radio, television, and telephone signals do not reach it. It features an extended trip to and through Bellona, a fictional city in the American Midwest cut off from the rest of the world by an unknown catastrophe. Dhalgren is a 1975 science fiction novel by American writer Samuel R.
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