The Agency is the story of a super-secret, Orwellian sexual network, rife and seething in an America consumed and dehumanised by a lust for power. It explores issues of erotic dominance and submission with an immediacy and frankness previously unseen in American literature. Meltzer's landmark novel confirmed him as one of America's early masters of the erotic - or, as he dubbed it, 'agit-smut'.