cover by Ellen Harvey
James Lewelling 124 pages ISBN 978-0-9798080-2-9 $14 James Lewelling's first novel, This Guy, was published by Spuyten Duyvil in 2006. Though he has kicked around a bit, for the last six years he has been living and working in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. |
Tortoise enacts a kind of prodigal son story gone bad. Having received a mysterious telephone call summoning him home, the protagonist flies half-way around the world to hear what he believes will be the final words of his "accursed progenitor" (as Beckett would have it). Somewhat in the manner of W. G. Sebald, the narrative is driven simultaneously by the journey and the protagonist's increasingly urgent ruminations on the facts of his life and current predicament.
—A.D. Jameson, from The Review of Contemporary Fiction
—Matt Everett, from a review in Brooklyn Rail
—James Lough, from a review in elimae
Excerpts from Tortoise appeared in (sequential order as they appear in novel): 5cense (pages 7-9), Projected Letters (pages 45-51), elimae (pages 51-52), Evergreen Review (pages 55-62) and Word Riot (pages 63-65). |