Fiction. Multimedia. Art+Design by Stephen Farrell. This special, limited edition is a must-have for book collectors. The original, groundbreaking novel of identity in the biotech age comes in a clear, polystyrene slipcase reminiscent of the lab. The custom slipcase also holds the voice of the book: an audio CD of readings especially created for this edition and set to music by Alloy Orchestra, renowned creator of contemporary scores for silent movies. Additional music and performances by Paul Johnson, Maria Tomasula, Chris Jara, and Scott Appleby. Scroll down for a look inside this hybrid image-text novel, and sample sound clips from the CD. Up until now, everyone alive on earth was bound to one another through African Eve, our last common ancestor: a woman who, 5,000 generations ago, passed her genes and language to sons and daughters who did the same as they gradually populated the world. Today, however, Square, Circle and the other inhabitants of Flatland have the opportunity to step outside this lineage. To rearrange the bodies of animals, plants, and even themselves. VAS: AN OPERA IN FLATLAND is the story of Square's decision to undergo an operation that will leave him sterile for the good of his wife, Circle, for the good of their daughter, Oval, and for the good of society, including the unborn descendants he will never have. VAS is, in other words, the story of finding one's identity within the double-helix of language and lineage-and Square's struggle to see beyond the common pages of ordinary, daily life upon which he is drawn.
Author City: NOTRE DAME, IN USA
Steve Tomasula is the author of the novels The Book of Portraiture (FC2); In & Oz (Ministry of Whimsy Press); and VAS: AN OPERA IN FLATLAND, an acclaimed novel of the biotech revolution. Incorporating narrative forms of all kinds--from comic books, travelogues, journalism or code to Hong Kong action movies or science reports--Tomasula's writing has been called a "reinvention of the novel,'"combining an "attention to society in the tradition of Orwell, attention to language in the tradition of Beckett, and the humor of a Coover or Pynchon." His writing often crosses visual, as well as written genres, drawing on science and the arts to take up themes of how we represent what we think we know, and how these representations shape our lives. His short fiction has been published widely, and most recently in McSweeney's, DENVER QUARTERLY, Fiction International, and the Iowa Review, where he received the Iowa Prize for the most distinguished work published in any genre. Tomasula holds a doctorate in English from the University of Illinois at Chicago and teaches in the program for writers at the University of Notre Dame.
Reviews and Other Links
http://www.stevetomasula.com/