From Publishers Weekly
A dozen rueful and gorgeously observed if sometimes oblique stories centered on the idea of appetites (their denial and their satisfaction) make up Gaston's (The Good Body; Sex Is Red; etc.) latest. In "The Alcoholist," a man with an exquisitely sensitive palate who is dying of cancer mourns all that he will no longer consume and, at the same time, makes peace with his death through the experience of one final intimate tasting. In "The Little Drug Addict Who Could," a young heroin addict, turning to his Uncle Jack for support as he tries to kick his habit, ends up introducing Jack to the drug, which is, the boy says, as magical as "sucking the big, beautiful breast. Not just any breast. Mother's breast. The best mother's breast.... It's like sucking Eve's breast." A heavy drinker's hopes for romance with a road-block cop are sweetly unrealistic in "Driving Under the Influence," and a fish researcher's sexual urges become tied to the fate of her latest aquatic subjects in "The Northern Cod." Gaston's prose is careful and probing, which makes up for a few rambling entries and the odd lethargic conclusion. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Book Description
Short-listed for Canada's prestigious Giller Prize, Mount Appetite presents 12 vibrant, intensely human tales of desire and alienation. "Everyone at the top of Mt. Appetite is as close as they can get to heaven. It's work to get there and agony to be denied." Whether a salmon researcher, professional taster, illiterate faith healer, or Malcolm Lowry's illegitimate son, the protagonists in these sly and witty stories have all climbed the mountain, and all share a restless, relentless longing that they struggle to satiate through alcohol, drugs, sex, or schemes of the heart. Bill Gaston, author of the critically acclaimed The Good Body, evinces a remarkable dexterity of voice as he moves effortlessly among his colorful cast of characters, drawing the junkie with the same skill and compassion as the teenaged 7-11 clerk. Grotesque, unsettling, and oddly tender, Mount Appetite is short fiction at its finest.
Mount Appetite FROM THE PUBLISHER
Short-listed for Canada's prestigious Giller Prize, Mount Appetite presents 12 vibrant, intensely human tales of desire and alienation. "Everyone at the top of Mt. Appetite is as close as they can get to heaven. It's work to get there and agony to be denied." Whether a salmon researcher, professional taster, illiterate faith healer, or Malcolm Lowry's illegitimate son, the protagonists in these sly and witty stories have all climbed the mountain, and all share a restless, relentless longing that they struggle to satiate through alcohol, drugs, sex, or schemes of the heart. Bill Gaston, author of the critically acclaimed The Good Body, evinces a remarkable dexterity of voice as he moves effortlessly among his colorful cast of characters, drawing the junkie with the same skill and compassion as the teenaged 7-11 clerk. Grotesque, unsettling, and oddly tender, Mount Appetite is short fiction at its finest.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
A dozen rueful and gorgeously observed if sometimes oblique stories centered on the idea of appetites (their denial and their satisfaction) make up Gaston's (The Good Body; Sex Is Red; etc.) latest. In "The Alcoholist," a man with an exquisitely sensitive palate who is dying of cancer mourns all that he will no longer consume and, at the same time, makes peace with his death through the experience of one final intimate tasting. In "The Little Drug Addict Who Could," a young heroin addict, turning to his Uncle Jack for support as he tries to kick his habit, ends up introducing Jack to the drug, which is, the boy says, as magical as "sucking the big, beautiful breast. Not just any breast. Mother's breast. The best mother's breast.... It's like sucking Eve's breast." A heavy drinker's hopes for romance with a road-block cop are sweetly unrealistic in "Driving Under the Influence," and a fish researcher's sexual urges become tied to the fate of her latest aquatic subjects in "The Northern Cod." Gaston's prose is careful and probing, which makes up for a few rambling entries and the odd lethargic conclusion. Agent, Carolyn Swayze. (Apr.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
A dozen taut and mysterious tales by Canadian poet and novelist Gaston (The Good Body, 2001) explore powerful addictions, cravings and desires. Many of the stories have narrators who are unreliable because they are high: on beer in "Driving Under the Influence," about a newly jilted fellow who cruises repeatedly through a police roadblock between fill-ups at bars, his eye on the female cop; on heroin in "The Little Drug Addict That Could," about a beer-drinker who tries to help his nephew kick his habit and ends up "chipping" in the men's room of a local bar ("nursing on Eve," as his nephew puts it); on whiskey in "The Angels' Share," about a woman, "humbled by many kinds of hunger," who comes out of the wilderness and joins a group drinking around a campfire; on a lifetime of connoisseurship in the case of Van Luven, of "The Alcoholist," who is trying to create one last distinctive blond beer before dying of cirrhosis. Gaston is so skillful that he draws you along on the ride, following each narrator's convincing storyline while allowing you simultaneously to sense the distortion of the drug. "Where It Comes From, Where It Goes" involves a different kind of altered state as a faith healer recollects the onset of his gift-he saved his daughter from leukemia-and also discovers that people have been stealing from his voluntary contribution box. "A Forest Path" is narrated by the bastard son of the notorious drinker/author Malcolm Lowry, who tracks the antics of his mother, an "eccentric and literary lush." The title piece is a masterpiece of rationalization, the story of a father who medicates his troubled 12-year-old daughter on cannabis. It's told in a series of letters to the authoritieswho have removed her from his custody after neighbors turned him in as a drug-dealer and abusive father. Intriguing short fiction, told in a distinctive, poetic prose.
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