Losing It

by Alan Cumyn

Sometimes those who have the most seem bent on throwing it away. Meet Bob Sterling, a comfortable middle-aged professor, a specialist in the life of Edgar Allan Poe, married to a former student with whom he has a young son. In the space of a week his family, marriage, home, career, sanity, and life are brought to the brink of ruin in the aftermath of a trip he makes with a student, the intense young poet Sienna Chu, who brings to life Bob’s long-harbored sexual fetish. Add to the mix the misadventures of his wife’s mentally failing mother and Sienna’s explosive techno-junkie roommate, and you have Alan Cumyn’s strikingly accomplished novel Losing It .

Whether describing an Alzheimer sufferer, a fetishist, a twisted poet, or a young mother whose life is suddenly spinning out of control, Cumyn reveals the eccentric sub-surfaces of our lives. Poignant, gritty, and tantalizingly erotic, Losing It is a high-wire act that plays out as an irresistible blend of darkness and humor.

Genres: Fiction, Novels

384 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Angeles · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am reminded of a few life facts in this novel:
- A person who cheats to be with you is a person who will likely cheat to be with someone else,
- A person who lies to themselves is dangerous to everyone around them,
- A person who is ill cannot be taken care of by a family member unless that person's ENTIRE immediate family is going to be involved.

I did enjoy the several stories within this novel - the student after her research study who lies to herself about drugs bringing 'clarity,' the cross-dressing desires of a man feeling beaten down by life, the mother overwhelmed by the constant need of her child, and the man who cannot ever seem to be in the right place at the right time in order to find what he thinks he wants most.

It's not particularly well-written, but I enjoyed that Cumyn explored several characters fairly deeply, and didn't focus the entire novel on just one character or one point of view.

[Yvonne O'Connor · Rating 1 out of 5]

Bob is an English professor who divorced to marry his student, Julia. They have a 2 year old now and Julia is preoccupied with him and her own mother who has dementia. Robert is captivated by Sienna Chu, another student who is secretly researching cross-dressing and lures Bob into telling her that he has this fetish. Havoc ensues, with the mom missing, Bob caught on a website in full drag, the house burning-down and a high school friend of Julia's showing-up as the plumber with a penchant for her! Bob must confess his fetish or risk losing his family, yet hide it or risk jeopardizing his career.

I didn't expect the numerous plot twists, but the author would be a handful for Freud. He is obsessed with breast feeding and the whole Julia and son "nubbies" thing is distracting and useless to the plot. All that you get out of the book is the sense that if you don't conform to the societal norms, your world will come crashing-down as punishment. Sienna's overdose doesn't make sense either - did her jealous girlfriend, Ricky cause it? And why does Julia stay with Robert in the end? Most of all, what happened to Donny??

At the end, you are left feeling that you just read a book with absolutely no point.

[Maura · Rating 2 out of 5]

It started as a pretty interesting book, but it got really weird and didn't come to any sort of satisfying conclusion.

[Paula Dembeck · Rating 3 out of 5]

This unique and funny novel published in 2003 by Canadian author Alan Cumyn is told from the perspectives of five different characters. It describes how university professor Bob Sterling’s family, marriage, home and sanity are brought to the brink of ruin in the aftermath of a conference he attends with a graduate student.

Bob Sterling is a middle-aged professor of literature at the University of Ottawa who specializes in the work of Edgar Alan Poe. Bob left his first wife for one his students, a girl named Julia who he married and with whom he now has a son named Matthew. His life has been going well but he hides a deep secret. He is obsessed with women’s underclothing and likes to dress up in their clothes.

Bob has recently fallen under the spell of Sienna Chiu a beautiful intense poet who writes unintelligible drug fueled poetry. She has already tweaked his long-hidden fetish and convinced him to don women’s lingerie and a red dress in his office and allowed her to photograph him.

While Bob and Sienna are off attending a conference on the work of Poe in New York, Julia is home, exhausted and tied to the on-demand breast feeding schedule of their son Mathew and worried about her ailing mother Lenore, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s in a nursing home. She is also fielding the flirtations of former school mate Donny Clatch who is now renovating her bathroom.

While at the conference Sienna seduces Bob, leading him further into her clutches while he remains blissfully unaware that she has a very jealous boyfriend who vows revenge on his rival. But events suddenly drift sideways when Bob receives a frantic call from Julia telling him that Lenore has escaped from the Fallowfields Nursing Home and she must move her into their home to keep her safe. Things come to a climax when Lenore, who believes she is in a prison, sets fire to the house and it burns down.

Cumyn describes several hilarious moments in this episodically delivered plot, as he jumps from one narrator to another, each in the midst of “losing it”. He delivers each with a distinct and different voice, helping readers connect with and empathize with them, although the toddler’s voice is less convincing than the others. Most funny are the scenes with Bob immersed in his sexual fantasies. There is the clip on “Lighthouse Portable Vagina” he ordered through the mail and his desperate experience trapped in an airplane washroom wrestling with latex while the plane is about to land in New York which deliver real laugh out loud moments. They careen with Sienna’s drug fueled largely unintelligible poetry, the former school mate of Julia’s, now a carpenter renovating her home’s bathroom, as he flirts with her and shares his thoughts on new age religion, and the brain addled thoughts of Lenore, trapped in the clutches of Alzheimer’s. Cumyn deserves kudos for his description of what goes on in Lenore’s mind, it is very well done, a few sober moments amidst all the chaos.

This was Cumyn’s fifth novel. It comes across as a little over the top and might not be to everyone’s taste, but it is well written, has several slapstick funny scenes and is an entertaining read that also includes some serious moments.

[Glen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel tries a little too hard I think. Some of the writing is very good and I appreciated the author's attempt to portray the tragedy of an Alzheimer's victim both from within and without, but the main focal character seems to be Bob, and specifically his secret transcendence fantasy that involves wearing women's clothing and the absence of body hair, along with other related fantasies. I found his character to be alternatingly comic and ridiculous, but mostly pathetic. That might have worked except that he is juxtaposed with Julia, his former student, now wife of seven years, who is heroically trying to raise their son and tend to her ailing mother while he is pursuing his fetishes and one of his undergraduate students. There is the suggestion of a possible dalliance of her with a former high school acquaintance, but that doesn't really go anywhere, and so in the end she seems to symbolize an anchor of motherly normality while he embodies silly adolescent self-absorption. Put like that, it sounds like a pretty tired plot with some sexual weirdness added for garnish, and in the end that's kind of how I felt about it.

[Cristina Bracewell · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think leaving it without an end to the story makes your imagination go wild at the possibilities of the family life. It was very interesting and reminded me that the stressors in my life are so small compared to other people. It is important to always communicate with your loved ones and try not to lose the things that matter most with tasks or desires and do what you can do but also give yourself some time to really make you feel like yourself without losing it all at the end anyway.

[Norman Smith · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a "did not finish" review, so maybe it is a five-star book from page 200 onwards, but up to this point I have not enjoyed it at all.

The humour in this book has aged very poorly, and started off badly in any case. Professor Bob hits on students, neglects his wife and child, and is exploring transsexualism. Har har!

There is probably more there that I ought to appreciate it, but I have decided that I will move on to something more interesting, like "An Economic History of the Soviet Union".

[Valli Ostrowski · Rating 3 out of 5]

Crazy book. Poor Bob. Talk about a total clusterf$#k. I enjoyed reading it but I could have done without the useless last chapter.

[Amanda Thomas · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alan Cumyn attended our meeting in September to discuss his book, Losing It. I found the book to be a hilarious caper. There were certainly serious themes intertwined but the protagonist's struggle with his desire to be an upstanding member of the community, husband, father etc and with his need to cross dress read like a movie script to me. I kept picturing actor Bob Hoskins in the title role! A few in the group found some elements of the book distasteful but understandably not every book or subject appeals to everyone and difference of opinions make for a good discussion. I had never read any of his books before but of course knew of the author as he lives here in Ottawa and I thoroughly enjoyed the book and was so happy that he could join the group to discuss his book.

[Harvey · Rating 4 out of 5]

- quite humorous story - where just about every character is just about losing their sanity; your heart goes out to Bob Sterling, the middle-aged professor who is so very enslaved by his sexual fetish; is wife, on the very edge of a nervous breakdown over the commitment of her mother to a home (she is in the throws of Alzheimer's Disease), and other wacky characters

[Mary Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel is very American Beauty-esque. It was a little bizarre, but entertaining.

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a little too slapstick for its subject matter, but engaging.

[Alicia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this three weeks ago, and the plot has already skipped my mind. I guess it wasn't that good. All I wrote down was "dark, formulaic, readable."