Once upon a time, there hailed a man from Memphis, a modern day adventurer with a Confederacy of Dunces aiming to bring him down. His enemies: a former high school friend turned cokehead, a lie-mongering newswoman who fiends for sex and unearned money, a pistol-packing homosexual with a badge and a deadly axe to grind and an escaped convict lusting for revenge. Bruin's Wake is the story of Paul Bruin, an enigmatic character who trapses from one adventure to the next. Horseshoe Lake, Arkansas. 201 Poplar. Florida State University. Oxford, Mississippi. They're all stops on the road leading back to Memphis. But will his greatest nemesis of all, pride, finally get the best of him?