The Last Days of the Lacuna Cabal
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Product Description
Review
‘The novel everyone will be talking about’
London Lite
‘[A] sweet, unpredictable novel…ingenious and openly written‘
Time Out
‘The Lacuna Cabal Montreal Young Women’s Book Club is unconventional in more ways than one – namely that its members don’t do much reading! But they do share a bond and help each other to cope with the changing world in this fab book. 4 stars’
OK! Magazine
'A clever little book…you'll love it' Daily Express
‘A sort of Tristram Shandy for the twenty-first century…It’ll blow your mind.’
Michael Redhill
‘Dixon's talents, however, extend beyond theatrics: flashbacks and set pieces are tightly written and offer the full-bodied coherence one expects from a novel.’
Quill & Quire
'What makes Sean Dixon's first novel so electrifyingly smart and charming is its abundant passion.'
The Georgia Straight
'[In] this ambitious book…Dixon has fashioned his make-believe to be relevant, offered a satisfying harvest from early planted seeds, and embedded some fine intellectual levity.’
The Globe and Mail
'Every chapter is filled with biff, bang, pow surprises! Suspend your disbelief and thrill in the oddities.'
She Does the City.com
‘Sean Dixon is a worthy successor to some of Canada’s foremost authors. He is in possession of an imaginative gift akin to Timothy Findley, the erudition and style of Robertson Davies and the off beat humor of Mordecai Richler. And like them, he is deserving of recognition and a following south of the border’
Bruce Bauman, author of And The Word Was
'The novel is infused with sex and literary in-jokes and the postmodern device of self-reflexive footnotes to spice up the story. But its surface playfulness masks a deeper seriousness: there is death in the novel, and war and a recognition of human fragility and loneliness. These themes, which are deeply and inextricably embedded, put the lie to the notion that a Canadian novel must affect a stentorian pose in order to be worthy of consideration. Flannery O'Connor wrote that "all comic novels that are any good must be about matters of life and death"; Sean Dixon would surely agree.'
That Shakespearean Rag
‘Riddled with references to literature throughout centuries and contemporary culture, this story is more than the words contained within the covers…fast paced, witty and engaging’
Broken Pencil Lit Zine
The Georgia Straight
'What makes Sean Dixon's first novel so electrifyingly smart and charming is its abundant passion.'
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
I find writing reviews of books such as this quite puzzling. On the one hand it's a page turner quite simply because I really wanted to find out what would happen next. The slightly surreal story weaves around until you feel that you don't really know where it's about to go next. On the other, the characters and plot don't really derive any great lasting memories.
The story is from the box labelled `finding yourself' and involves a group of individuals who come together over a book club to re-inact The Epic of Gilgamesh, expectedly learning more about themselves and each other in the process. It sounds simple enough, but passes through so many twists that you'll begin to wonder what it really was about by the time you get to the end.
Unfortunately, the writing style and author's verbosity does mean that getting to the next event does take rather longer than necessary. Odd, then, as this is written in a more modern, almost bloggish style and yet the author seems keen to retain some sort of need for name dropping of a literary nature.
Yet more puzzling is the way that the characters are all from very interesting backgrounds and yet fail to really come to life, at least enough for me to feel any sort of connection with them.
So, a book worth reading through once, it certainly provides some entertainment, but probably not something I'd really want to keep on my book shelf.
The story is from the box labelled `finding yourself' and involves a group of individuals who come together over a book club to re-inact The Epic of Gilgamesh, expectedly learning more about themselves and each other in the process. It sounds simple enough, but passes through so many twists that you'll begin to wonder what it really was about by the time you get to the end.
Unfortunately, the writing style and author's verbosity does mean that getting to the next event does take rather longer than necessary. Odd, then, as this is written in a more modern, almost bloggish style and yet the author seems keen to retain some sort of need for name dropping of a literary nature.
Yet more puzzling is the way that the characters are all from very interesting backgrounds and yet fail to really come to life, at least enough for me to feel any sort of connection with them.
So, a book worth reading through once, it certainly provides some entertainment, but probably not something I'd really want to keep on my book shelf.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
There are those for whom it is important that art should always mirror life. For the members of the Lacuna Cabal Montreal Young Women's Book Club (no boys allowed, not ever, no exceptions... except for Neil Coghill the Real McCoghill, because he is only 10 and doesn't really count, and except for Aline Irwin for whom no exception should have been made because she is only a woman in as much as she is a boy in a dress) it is actually more important that life mirror art (or, more specifically, literature). For the truth is that the Lacuna Cabal takes a rather literal view of the idea that a Book Club should strive to bring books to life. And when, following the untimely death of one of the club's members, it is decided that their next book should be "The Epic of Gilgamesh" (in no other than an original cuneiform clay-tablet edition) all manner of outrageous and bizarre events ensue, drawing not only the members of the club but several innocent by-standers, a show-seeking fitzbot and even the Blogger of Baghdad, variously through dramatic incidents of seduction, rape, death, haircuts (easily the most scary bit of the book), descents into the underworld, pursuit by robots and imprisonment! Plus, of course, enlightenment, self-discovery and renewal.
Sean Dixon's story takes the reader on an exhilarating roller-coaster ride as it swallows up everyone in its path, leaving no-one and nothing it touches unchanged. Outrageous and bizarre events tumble over themselves at a fair old lick, with the story becoming ever more poignant and moving as it becomes increasingly gripping and ever more compulsive. This book is a veritable tour de force and if you can bring yourself to accept its many outrageous premises it is also hugely enjoyable. I suspect many people will hate it though, so it may be advisable to sample before you buy.
Sean Dixon's story takes the reader on an exhilarating roller-coaster ride as it swallows up everyone in its path, leaving no-one and nothing it touches unchanged. Outrageous and bizarre events tumble over themselves at a fair old lick, with the story becoming ever more poignant and moving as it becomes increasingly gripping and ever more compulsive. This book is a veritable tour de force and if you can bring yourself to accept its many outrageous premises it is also hugely enjoyable. I suspect many people will hate it though, so it may be advisable to sample before you buy.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
This is the story of the Lacuna Cabal Montreal Young Women's Book Club, a reading group with a difference. After tackling a book they take off across the world in search of a better understanding of its contents and message.
The tale is told by two of the members, with detailed descriptions of the various other characters in the group. While the initial concept seemed interesting to me, I found, after wading through several chapters, that I could neither relate to nor sympathise with any of quirky cabal members, whom I found quite unappealing. I therefore became unable to care what happened to them, and reluctantly gave up reading the book less than half way through.
The tale is told by two of the members, with detailed descriptions of the various other characters in the group. While the initial concept seemed interesting to me, I found, after wading through several chapters, that I could neither relate to nor sympathise with any of quirky cabal members, whom I found quite unappealing. I therefore became unable to care what happened to them, and reluctantly gave up reading the book less than half way through.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Not my kind of thing
While I can fully appreciate the charm of Sean Dixon's writing, The Last Days of the Lacuna Cabal didn't really do it for me. Read more
Published on 15 Jan 2009 by Particular Press
Managed to Get Through It
Well at least I finished it, which is more than my husband managed to do. What a tedious bunch of wet characters. Read more
Published on 18 Dec 2008 by Mrs. PJ Taylor
Great Title, Pretentious Twaddle
I thought, when I requested this from the vine programme that it would be interesting to try something outside my usual reading "comfort zone". Well, I was half right. Read more
Published on 26 Nov 2008 by Graeme Stewart
Not my type of book
I was invited to review this before release under the Amazon Vine programme, but I'm afraid I didn't get on with it. Read more
Published on 1 Nov 2008 by A. K. Johnston
Certainly a different sort of club
The Lacuna Cabal book club is a group of women (although I'm not sure that is totally true) who not only read together but re-enact the books they read in a building that is... Read more
Published on 24 Oct 2008 by Tox
A Difficult Read..
I read a variety of books and don't tend to stick to one particular genre or author. I enjoy both page-turning tosh of the John Grisham ilk, and the type of books that are often... Read more
Published on 21 Oct 2008 by J. P. Ellison
bizarre and fascinating. If you like Tristram Shandy....
A complex and surreal plot, some beautifully obscure writing, and a book unlike any other. You will love it. Or you will hate it. But you won't be indifferent. Read more
Published on 16 Oct 2008 by M. W. Hatfield
Repays the initial investment
This is one of those books that manages to make me feel under-educated while simultaneously feeding my urge to learn. Read more
Published on 10 Oct 2008 by Clever Spud
Loved it and loathed it in equal measure
The Last Days of the Lacuna Cabal is one of those books that defies a star rating. Three stars doesn't really tell you anything at all - some people will love it, others will... Read more
Published on 23 Sep 2008 by S. Diment
An original read
There is so much formulaic writing out there that it's good to come across a writer that is trying a more original approach. Read more
Published on 18 Sep 2008 by Chuck E
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