On Beauty is a provocative collection of moments, confessions, overheard conversations, and memories, both fleeting and crystalized, revolving around the small chasms and large craters of everyday life. Situated at the crossroads of prose and poetry, these 33 vignettes explore the rhythm, textures, and micro-moments of lives in motion. Composed with a poet’s eye for detail and ear for rhythm, rob mclennan’s brief stories play with form and language, capturing the act of record-keeping while in the process of living those records, creating a Polaroid-like effect. Throughout the collection, the worlds of literature and art infuse into intimate fragments of the everyday. A welcome chronicle of human connection and belonging, On Beauty will leave readers grappling with questions of how stories are produced and passed through generations.
Authors
- Pages
- 152
- Published in
- Edmonton, CA
- Series
- Robert Kroetsch Series
Table of Contents
- Front cover 1
- Title page 6
- Copyright page 7
- Epigraph 8
- Contents 10
- On beauty 12
- Fourteen things you don’t know about Arturus Booth 13
- Interruptions 20
- Bicycle 26
- On beauty 32
- The Matrix Resolutions 34
- The Garden 38
- On beauty 43
- Swimming lessons 44
- Character sketch 50
- On beauty 56
- Things to do in airports 57
- Baby names 61
- The Last Man on Earth 66
- On beauty 73
- Art I have not made 74
- A short film about my father 79
- On beauty 85
- Christmas music 91
- On beauty 97
- Less than zero: five imaginary stories 98
- Translator’s note 102
- Opening 109
- On beauty 112
- The Gospel According to Portia, 113
- Fearless 116
- On beauty 120
- Silence 121
- This is how it happens, 127
- On beauty 133
- The New House 134
- A dream about vegetable soup 138
- On beauty 145
- The names of things, 146
- Interference 152
- Seven impossible things 158
- The city is uneven 161
- On beauty 167
- The telltale heart, 169
- Green, with a pleasant breeze 174
- On beauty 179
- The last words spoken on the surface of the moon 180
- The Man from Glengarry 185
- The secret origins of the everyday 190
- On beauty 196
- Acknowledgements 198
- About the author 204