Review
'A postmodern novel about the members of a Montreal book club who find themselves involuntarily acting out The Epic of Gilgamesh may not sound like a crowd-pleaser, but playwright and banjo enthusiast Sean Dixon's debut novel has been a surprise success, netting many delighted readers in Canada, as well as a six-figure two-book deal in the UK. The pleasure of the book comes from Dixon's deft handling of his weightier literary themes, making it reminiscent of the kind of irrepressibly mischievous and literary novels that John Barth used to write. Call it populist pointdexterism.' – Quill & Quire
Book Description
The Lacuna Cabal Montreal Young Woman’s Book Club loves to bring to life tableaux from the books they read. But when they begin to enact the Epic of Gilgamesh, in the early days of the Iraq War, the book begins to enact them instead. And, as it does, the Cabal starts to splinter, driving our narrators out of their own tale.
Cross-dressing Aline becomes obsessed with the Baghdad Blogger, Anna with dabbling in prostitution, and Emily with the maker of the Fitzbot, an ambulatory artificial-intelligence experiment. In the centre of it all is Runner Coghill, who is still mourning her twin sister and who brought to the group the ten priceless cuneiform Gilgamesh stones.
Underlying it all is the tale of telling the tale, the convolutedness and self-consciousness of our delightful narrators, Jennifer and Danielle, as they reconstruct the tangled story to bring us a novel that is cryptographically charming and eruditely engrossing.
‘A sort of Tristram Shandy for the twenty-first century, Sean Dixon’s first novel is an intellectual, sexual, logorrheac, bibliophilic, cryptological, political and archaeological rant of the first order. It’ll change your idea of what “written in stone” means, and it’ll blow your mind too.’ – Michael Redhill
From the Inside Flap
About the Author
Sean Dixon is a writer and actor. His works for theatre include Billy Nothin’, Sam’s Last Dance, The Painting, Aerwacol and Falling Back Home. He helped found the innovative Winnipeg theatre company primus and is Playwright-out-of-Residence for Victoria’s Theatre SKAM. A play collection, AWOL was published by Coach House Books and a YA novel, The Feathered Cloak, will be published by Key Porter in fall 2007. He lives in Toronto.
