Condition: BRAND NEW
ISBN: 9781920882556
Year: 2009
Publisher: Giramondo Publishing


Description:


The Bath Fuguesis Castro at hisbest, in a wonderful performance wrought from intrigue, romance, deception – and comedy.The book is composed of three interwoven novellas, the firstcentred on an ageing art forger; the second on a Portuguese poet, opiumaddict and collector; the third told by a well-connected doctor, with acabinet of venom, and an art gallery on the north Queensland coast.

Around these characters circle others, in the contrapuntal mannerof the fugue suggested by the book's title. Some are related, somefugitive, some like the essayist Montaigne, the poet Baudelaire orthe philosopher Benjamin, enter the story from the past.

Motifs recur – baths, bicycles, clocks, addiction, the counterfeit –deepening the lines of association and inheritance which bind theirlives, and giving weight to the friendships thrust upon them.

'…one of the most exacting, yetrewarding of Australian novelists,and when the mood is on him, oneof the most amusing as well.' – PETER PIERCE,The Age

'His way of working has producedstartlingly original storytelling, thesort that reminds me, with joy, againand again, that anything is possiblein literature.' – SUE BOND,Asian Review Of Books