L (and things come apart)

Montreal-based writer, reporter and columnist Ian Orti’s debut novel is unlike anything I’ve read before.

Is this a good thing? As a reader, I’d have to say yes. But as a reviewer, I’m left at a bit of a loss.

I can’t describe this lovely, confounding tale in terms of works that I know have gone before. Nor can I just outline the plot, because it’s simply not simple.

This slim volume is sprinkled with chapters ranging in length from a few pages to just a couple of lines. The quirky nature of the story is not immediately apparent in the first short chapter where we meet Henry, a henpecked and cuckolded husband who has retreated into his ownmind during a rather humiliating dinner party.

But that chapter’s last paragraph about an unnamed female party guest reveals that we have entered a world where things are not as we might expect: “She arrived late, after Henry, and is the only other person there who hears the music the way he does, who understands it is not a sound, but a place beyond language. They are two solitary notes of the same score and come from a place where one plus one is one. But only one of them knows this right now.”

The woman, who we eventually learn is named “L”, comes/has come/will come (See what I mean? Not simple to describe!) to live in the flat above Henry’s café. It is inevitable that the pair will fall in love, but this is an original love story,with an original trajectory.

Orti’s writing is replete with arresting images such as a cascade of falling stars that proves to be falling snow or Henry’s heart beating quietly in L’s hands and replaced “with great care” in his chest. Invisible Publishing is making a reputation for itself as a company that gives voice to talented and innovative new writers. Ian Orti plus Invisible equals a match made in heaven. —Kate Watson