In describing his usage of the past in his novels (where many of them are set), Tuten once stated:The fact that I don’t write about contemporary life doesn’t mean I’m any less taken up with it. I find it too limiting to write about contemporary life just in contemporary diction, however. I don’t think there's enough flexibility. I can imagine writing about characters who feel passion for one another in a contemporary setting but I don’t, as yet, hear the language for that. But I’m always thinking about contemporary life vis a vis the way it looks in the past. I mean how it looks in the past is a reflection of what it is today. That's what interests me. I think I’m always talking about present-day life, not only political life but about the quality of passion, the quality of all relationships and love. Tuten is also a well-known figure within the art world. He has worked as an art and film critic in various venues such as the "New York Times" and "Artforum" and often incorporates allusions to these fields in his fiction as well. Tuten was a close personal friend of Roy Lichtenstein and published several essays on his work, as well as catalogue essays for many other artists including John Baldessari, Ross Bleckner, Eric Fischl, R. B. Kitaj, and David Salle. Tuten currently resides in New York City's East Village. Tuten's first novel, The Adventures of Mao on the Long March (1971), a fictionalized account of Chairman Mao's rise to power, is highly experimental in nature. It contains Faulkneresque changes in narrative and lengthy fictional conversations with Mao that read like journalistic interviews. The story first appeared in 1969 in a 39-page condensed form in the magazine "Artist Slain". The novel in its entirety was subsequently published by Citadel Press in 1971, and re-released in 2005 by New Directions. The cover of "Mao" features original artwork by painter Roy Lichtenstein. This is fitting for Tuten whom, in life as in his novels, has a keen interest in artistic criticism (particularly with regard to painting). Tuten himself was actually used as a model for the drawing, which Lichtenstein altered accordingly to resemble Mao. His next novel, Tallien: A Brief Romance (1988), is also about an historical figure, though one not nearly as well known as Mao. Jean Lambert Tallien was a high-ranking figure in the French Revolution, serving as the president of the Constitutional Convention and a member of the Committee of Public Safety.