The Obituary - by Gail Scott (Paperback)

About the Book

A haunting new novel from the author of My Paris

Book Synopsis

In order to traverse a city where identity is tagged by accent, Rosine, Gail Scott's part-Indigenous protagonist, performs an ever-shifting amalgam, ventriloquizing often suspect voices, both contemporaneous and ancestral. Her inability to claim a legacy becomes a trajectory of disjunctions where place, language, and race are lived through in the most detailed ways, fostering schisms that challenge what narrative has come to mean under the rubric of the "novel." Though a mystery, possibly involving murder, The Obituary is less a whodunit than an investigation of who speaks when "one" speaks.

Review Quotes

"A great achievement. I can't remember when I've been so wowed by a book."--Robert Glück

About the Author

GAIL SCOTT is the author of essays, manifestos, short stories, and three other novels including My Paris. She teaches at the Université de Montréal.