Part of TDR's feature on Toronto Books: Spring 2008

Claudia Dey began working on Stunt (Coach House, 2008) during the summer of 2003. The process began “as a series of notes scrawled in a notebook. The notebooks accumulated. They were transcribed and distilled over many, many hours.”

For a complete rundown of all things Claudia, visit her website: claudiadey.com

*

On your bicycle, we are flying. In my sock feet and nightgown, I stand up on your handlebars, the prow of a ship heading into the great unknown, and I climb onto your mile-wide shoulders, can see the next continent ... You catch the moon, always heavy in your mouth. You tell me it tastes like ice and regret. You tell me it tastes like liftoff. – excerpt from Stunt

Eugenia Ledoux, nine years old, wakes to a note from her father: ‘gone to save the world. sorry. yours, sheb wooly ledoux. asshole.’ Eugenia is left behind with her mother, the sharp-edged B-movie actress Mink, and her sister, the death-obsessed and hauntingly beautiful Immaculata. When Mink climbs into the family car and vanishes, Eugenia doubles in age overnight, but remains the dark and diminutive creature who earned the nickname ‘Stunt.’

Eugenia devotes herself to finding Sheb. She writes to the man she believes to be Sheb’s father: I.I. Finbar Me The Three, a retired tightrope walker. Waiting for Finbar’s response, she retreats to Toronto Island, where she meets Samuel Station, a barefoot voluptuary, world traveller and ring-maker.

When Finbar does write back, Eugenia wonders if she will find what she is looking for – or something else entirely. Studded with postcards from outer space, twins, levitation, the explosion of a shoulder-pad factory, and some accomplished taxidermy, Stunt is part dirge, part cowboy poetry and part love letter to the wilder corners of Toronto and of ourselves.

(Interview by Nathaniel G. Moore - March 2008)

*

TDR: What inspired you to have the characters venture over to Toronto Island?

CD: If the city of Toronto was a brain, the island would be its wildest thought. I lived on Toronto Island for various periods throughout the writing of the book. I found the island culture to be its own peculiar, dream-like construction. we do not wake up in the city to a horse or a parade of children on stilts walking by. I needed a setting that was fit for daring (and some apocalyptic underwater sex.)

TDR: People enjoy knowing where things are set. People like these tidbits, they tuck them into their subconscious. Are you compelled to set your work in a specific geographic region?

CD: Absolutely. I think geography is crucial to story. A place has its own exigencies, its own urgencies, its own idiom. the heroine of 'stunt', Eugenia Ledoux travels from Parkdale to Toronto island to the ghostly grounds of the Guild Inn in Scarborough. Even though her migration east is only a matter of miles, these places are entire, other worlds for Eugenia. she has never travelled. I am fascinated by how we re-construct our identity when all of the obvious markers are gone. Writing this book, i was re-introduced to the city.

Catch Claudia and the Coach House gang at the following events:

Coach House Toronto Spring 2008 Launch
featuring Maggie Helwig, Claudia Dey, RM Vaughan,
Jen Currin and Jordan Scott
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Stones Place, 1255 Queen Street West
Toronto, ON
7:30 p.m.
Free

Coach House Montreal Spring 2008 Launch
featuring Maggie Helwig, Claudia Dey, RM Vaughan, Jen Currin,
Jordan Scott and Sachiko Murakami
Sunday, April 13, 2008
The Green Room, 5386 St-Laurent
Toronto, ON
8:00 p.m.
Free