AustLit

'As though it were a competition, as though you could measure love, put it on a scale, graph it, draw charts and predict growth or recession. Calculable. Everything was measurable. He felt the need to quantify things. Everything had currency, as long as you knew where to look, how to decipher it in numerical components. That was how he saw the world and the world saw it fit to bend to his will. After experiencing the grief of losing a relationship with a man I loved, I came to understand, albeit over several years, what my father meant by this. I understood that he wanted to save me from the hurt of loving, of being the doer, not the receiver. The operator, the labourer. The less worthy. The Iove-er.'  (Publication abstract)

'Brian Castro’s eleventh work of fiction is a profoundly playful novel about life, death and authorship. Faced with a terminal diagnosis, Lucien Gracq contemplates the meaning and meaninglessness of life as a town planner. Given fifty-three days to live – this is an allusion to Georges Perec’s novel 53 Days, which he left incomplete at his death – Gracq decides to focus on finishing his epic poem, Paidia. He moves to Paris and there joins an absurdly shadowy society of misfit intellectuals. Who wouldn’t be intrigued by this?' (Introduction)