The House on Major Street

By (author) Leon Rooke
Categories: Fiction: general and literary, Fiction and Related items
Publisher: Porcupine's Quill
Paperback : 9780889844193, 224 pages, February 2018

Excerpt

The one window of Tallis Haley's second-floor room looks out over an exquisite garden. In this garden stands a fine sculpted fountain, erected overnight by unseen hands. So it seems. Because when Tallis Haley-the comet, man! Weird light! Watch that little shit go!-was removed from Children's Hospital and restored to his own bedroom, the next-door site was a rubble-strewn field. He remembers this clearly. Yes, and rolling hills, trees, swollen streams. Teepees. Muskrat and chipmunk, buffalo!

From a high limb you could see all the way to Winnipeg. Turn a snitch and there is . .. Buffalo.

Another century.

Each night now, in the dead of night, no less than a dozen women perambulate, with elaborate cries of ecstasy and considerable expertise in the charm area. A dream. Oh, it's a dream, by anyone's account. Bewitching, yes, a joyful ceremony. And every night, you understand, which is hard on a boy in the comate status.

Fantastic events unfolding, here at 2X8 Major.

Ask Daisy, ask Emmitt. Inquire of anyone.

Chekhov is rumoured to abide here.

[Continued inThe House on Major Street. ..]

Description

Populated by media personalities, literary characters, three-legged deer-like creatures, and an array of idiosyncratic Toronto neighbours, The House on Major Street is an internal and external picaresque tale that begins with a dramatic bicycle accident and explores, along the way, the blurred boundaries between the stories we read, the stories we tell, and the stories we live. To learn more about this publisher, click here: http://bit. ly/2tUTsso

Reviews

[On appearing as a character in The House on Major Street:]

`Leon flatters me and of course I'm delighted to be so used by a writer I respect so much. Steve Temple will feel the same I'm sure. Richard Landon, sadly gone now, would be equally flattered by Leon's very accurate picture of his rapacity-except he would sneer at Leon and goad him by saying the Fisher ``already has three copies of it''.

`I shall inquire of Leon, next time I see him, just what he means by ``dishevelled'' in reference to myself. He only sees me in places where drinking occurs, not in my professional guise where like all greedy dealers I'm always slick and charming. Looks like it's to be a must-read book.

- David Mason, proprietor, David Mason Books