A crisp clean first edition, no markings throughout: If Jonathan Swift were alive today and had the bad luck to live in one of t he most poverty-plagued and politically turbulent countries--Pakistan--he m ight have written this mordantly surrealistic novel. Sahid, a trod-upon vic tim of his wife, his employers, the government and society in general, beli eves he has found the fulfillment of his life's dream when he rents a house at what he thinks is a bargain price. But there's an evil power about the place, or so everybody says; and everybody seems to be right. Zahid's close friend is assassinated by the police; his emotionally disturbed son become s more deranged; and his wife is seduced by a religious guru. Finally anoth er of Zahid's friends is killed and Zahid is jailed for the murder. The jok e in the novel's title, if joke is the right word, is its insinuation that supernatural bad luck caused all these disasters. In fact, the author makes clear, man's inhumanity to man was responsible.Zameenzad, a Pakistani by b irth, writes beautiful English prose. This book won Britain's 1987 David Hi ghham Award for Best First Novel. Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an ou t of print or unavailable edition of this title. From Library Journal Having lost two sons, the timid Zahid and his lovely wife Jamilla struggle to preserve their surviving children from harm amidst the political and religious turmoil of contemporary Pakistan. The house they inhabit--said to be haunted--comes alive in their hallucinations, reflecting the tensions in their relationship with Shah Baba, a holy man Zahid contacts to reli.