Sleight
Kirsten Kaschock
- Narrator:
- Adam Verner
- Publisher:
- Coffee House Press
- Proof-listener:
- Linette Geisel
- Length:
- 9:33:40
- File Size:
- ~ 500 MB
- Share:
- Sample:
- Listen to first chapter
- Rating:
Description
Sisters Clef and Lark Scrye, like many siblings, are a study in contrast. Clef is a grounded pragmatist driven to excel. Lark, as weightless as her name implies, is an artistic prodigy tormented by needs that take physical shapes. One of the few things the women share is a youth spent honing their bodies for sleight, a fictional art form comprised of dance, architecture, acrobatics, and spoken word. Although estranged for several years, circumstances reunite them, along with West, a charismatic sleight troupe director, and Byrne, a young man burdened by his past. When a group of children is found murdered and bizarrely resurrected, West decides to use the atrocity as inspiration for a new performance, pushing the sleightists to their emotional and physical limits and the form itself to its brilliant apex.
Using images reminiscent of Guillermo del Toro, Kirsten Kaschock explores ideas of gender, family, and performance to ask one of the great questions: what is the role of art in the face of unthinkable tragedy?
First Line
In the South, Lark knows that dishes sleep.
Reviews
“Kaschock’s work stands out for the originality of its concepts, narrative structure, and, particularly, language, as the author redefines words in relation to her art and boldly breaks from traditional grammatical constructions. Kaschock’s intimate knowledge of dance is an asset, helping her bring the sleight performers vividly to life. . . . Sleight is to the traditional fiction narrative what alternative music is to mainstream pop. Readers who enjoy the challenge of an innovative, unconventional style will take pleasure in this selection.”—Library Journal
"I love this book. It is an acutely literary sci-fi rhapsody about inter-dimensional dance, and the tortured relationships between the dancers. It is also a subtle critique of our age. Kaschock accurately replicates our societal anxieties our inexpressible longings, our blind spots, our terrors, both holy and profane, and even, thank God, our joys. The novel’s language hums like a Buddhist gong, and the characters are at the same time sublimely mythic and frighteningly real, almost palpable. There is genuine magic in her novel."—Reginald McKnight
“With grace and whip-smart wit, Kirsten Kaschock is a gift from the gods of young talent.” –Mary Karr
More Metadata!
Iambik Audio ISBN: 9781926673875
Iambik Audio publication date: Dec. 14, 2011
Print ISBN: 9781566892759
Print publication date: Oct. 11, 2011
Audio distribution rights: Worldwide
Keywords/tags: poetry relationship theater art painting ballet dancing performing transcendence metaphysics
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