The Origin of Species
A Novel
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
Winner of the 2008 Governor General’s Award for Fiction
Montreal during the turbulent mid-1980s: Chernobyl has set Geiger counters thrumming across the globe, HIV/AIDS is cutting a deadly swath through the gay population worldwide, and locally, tempers are flaring over the recent codification of French as the official language of Quebec. Hiding out in a seedy apartment near campus, Alex Fratarcangeli (“Don’t worry. . . . I can’t even pronounce it myself”), an awkward, thirty-something grad student, is plagued by the sensation that his entire life is a fraud. Scarred by a distant father and a dangerous relationship with his ex Liz, and consumed by a floundering dissertation linking Darwin’s theory of evolution with the history of human narrative, Alex has come to view love and other human emotions as “evolutionary surplus, haphazard neural responses that nature had latched onto for its own insidious purposes.” When Alex receives a letter from Ingrid, the beautiful woman he knew years ago in Sweden, notifying him of the existence of his five-year-old son, he is gripped by a paralytic terror. Whenever Alex’s thoughts grow darkest, he recalls Desmond, the British professor with dubious credentials whom he met years ago in the Galapagos. Treacherous and despicable, wearing his ignominy like his rumpled jacket, Desmond nonetheless caught Alex in his thrall and led him to some life-altering truths during their weeks exploring Darwin’s islands together. It is only now that Alex can begin to comprehend these unlikely life lessons, and see a glimmer of hope shining through what he had thought was meaninglessness.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In his overambitious fifth novel, two-time Governor General's award winner Ricci (The Lives of Saints) introduces Alex Fratarcangeli, a 30-something Ph.D. student living in 1986 Montreal. Markedly immature, anxiety-ridden, and unable to complete his dissertation, Alex is in therapy after a bad break-up, and his interest in Charles Darwin and the meaning of life has him dangling in existential limbo. The novel takes the reader through an exhaustive look at a year in Alex's life with extensive flashbacks pausing to flesh out each minor player's tale in sometimes excessive length. Alex's general inability to move forward stems not only from his failed relationships but also from a summer he spent in the Gal pagos Islands with an English researcher, and though he slides through a series of sexual relationships with a diverse set of women, it's a platonic friendship with a sickly young woman that brings out the best in him. Ricci's accomplished prose does much to mitigate an unruly story line and an overstocked cast; Alex's pathetic flailings, meanwhile, will, depending on the reader, either endear or annoy.