Forgotten Work

(Paperback)

Publishing Details

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Description

This debut novel will appeal to readers interested in speculative and climate fiction, satire, fiction about music/musicians. Themes of environmental catastrophe, digital monopoly, resistance to authoritarianism and white supremacy. Will appeal as well to poets, poet-critics, lovers and haters of William Logan (aka everyone whos ever heard of him), lovers and haters of literary Twitter

Specialized markest: readers of verse novels like Robin Robertsons Booker Prize-shortlisted The Long Take and readers of formalist poetry: FW is a 21st century Rape of the Lock.

A sci-fi novel in heroic couplets, Forgotten Work is inspired by, among others, William Gibsons Pattern Recognition, Roberto Bolaos The Savage Detectives, and Nabokovs Pale Fire

Early advance reviews, including one from Christian Wiman, former editor of Poetry Magazine, praise Forgotten Works intelligence, formal dexterity, and humour

Guriels work has appeared in Slate, The Atlantic, and elsewhere; and he has been a paid blogger for Harriet (Poetry Foundation) and awarded Poetrys Editors Prize for Book Reviewing

Reviews

Praise for Forgotten Work

"A futuristic dystopian rock novel in rhymed couplets, this rollicking book is as unlikely, audacious and ingenious as the premise suggests."
New York Times

"A wondrous novel."
Ron Charles, Washington Post

"This is no novel for fans of 20th-century CanLits plodding linear plots of settling the land and alcoholism. This one is for the boundary pushers and bohos, jazz snobs with their fanatical attention to minutiae that allows them to feel superior to those who do not know about what Bukowski calls 'the thing!'"
Quill & Quire

"Forgotten Works biggest pyrotechnic is its form ... Guriel shifts comfortably between his formal constraint and the more prosaic needs of the narrative. Guriels formal choice reflects his characters obsessions with the past... Through this playful postmodern fictionalizing, Guriel signals the way that our approaches to past works and traditions form flags to rally around."
Canadian Literature

"Here's a verse-novel that is a sustained, dazzlingly crafted, adventure into the 21st century."
Molly Peacock, author of The Analyst

What do you get when you throw John Shade, Nick Drake, Don Juan, Sarah Records, and Philip K. Dick into a rhymed couplet machine Equal parts memory and forgetting, detritus and elegy, imagination and fancy, Forgotten Work could be the most singular novel-in-verse since Vikram Seths The Golden Gate. Thanks to Jason Guriels dexterity in metaphor-making, I found myself stopping and rereading every five lines or so, to affirm my surprise and delight.
Stephen Metcalf

This book has no business being as good as it is. Heroic couplets in the twenty-first century Its not a promising idea, but Forgotten Work is intelligent, fluent, funny, and wholly original. I cant believe it exists.
Christian Wiman

"This may be the first rock 'n roll novel written in iambic pentameter ... strange and affectionate, like Almost Famous penned by Shakespeare. A love letter to music in all its myriad iterations."
Kirkus Reviews

"A feast of allusionsmusical, literary, and cinematicis the books most entertaining aspect, and it speaks to the powerful currents flowing between artists and artworks across disciplines, as well as to the effect of art on its consumers ... Guriels bountiful celebration of connections between art finds an inspiring, infectious groove."
Publishers Weekly

Praise for Jason Guriel

What sets Guriel apart is the inescapable tone of his writing. Its obvious from reading him: he is having fun The best of his verse is infused with wit, irony, and the ghosts of his influences.
Quill & Quire

Guriel is the consummate stylist, and every poem in Satisfying Clicking Sound has plenty of flourish.
Maisonneuve

"Like the bumblebee that flies even though it shouldnt be able to, Forgotten Works amalgam of epic poem, sci-fi novel, and deep dive into rock-fandom gets improbably airborne, a feat attributable not only to its authors large and multifaceted talent, but also to his winning infatuation with the diverse realms his story inhabits."
Literary Matters

Author Bio

Jason Guriel is the author of several collections of poems and a book of essays. His writing has appeared in Slate, The Atlantic, and other magazines. He lives in Toronto.