The time: an entire night in Montreal. The place: a narrow alley where two stubborn drivers come to a preposterous impasse. The cast: a marvelous blend of misfits-Pelzic, the immigrant cabdriver whose ambition is to pull a retzic (bonanza) by throwing himself against moving vehicles and thereby milking some insurance company; Levin, the real estate fat cat whose tenants are pinpricking him mad with inane complaints; a tipsy millionaire; and a girl or two. The book: Shmucks, a brutally sardonic, brilliantly funny novel of confrontation and alienation.