The Memory Artists - Jeffrey Moore [1]
—The Lancet (U.K.)
“There is a warmth and hope—even love—that infuses the relationships between the characters, all in their different ways locked in their personal prisons.”
—Morning Star (U.K.)
“A challenging book, bristling with scientific and literary references from Feynman to Baudelaire by way of Nietzsche and Rossetti, this will not fail to make a huge impact.”
—The Good Book Guide (U.K.)
PENGUIN CANADA
THE MEMORY ARTISTS
Born in Montreal, JEFFREY MOORE was educated at the University of Toronto and the Sorbonne. He works as a translator and lectures at the University of Montreal. He was awarded the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for his first novel, Prisoner in a Red-Rose Chain, which has been optioned by Valkyrie Films.
Also by Jeffrey Moore
Prisoner in a Red-Rose Chain
The Memory Artists
Jeffrey Moore
PENGUIN CANADA
Published by the Penguin Group
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First published in a Viking Canada hardcover by Penguin Group (Canada), a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc., 2004 Published in this edition, 2005
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (WEB)
Copyright © Jeffrey Moore, 2004, 2005
Lines from “Calmly we walk through this April’s day”: Delmore Schwartz, Selected Poems.
Copyright © 1959 Carcanet Press Limited. Reprinted by permission.
A version of Chapter 18 was broadcast on CBC Radio and published in Matrix as “Delight in Disorder.”
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts which last year invested $21.7 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada.
Nous remercions de son soutien le Conseil des Arts du Canada, qui a investi 21,7 millions de dollars l’an dernier dans les lettres et l’édition à travers le Canada.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
Publisher’s note: This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Manufactured in Canada.
ISBN 0-14-301749-7
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication data available upon request
British Library Cataloguing in Publication data available
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition