Les familles combattent le fascisme!

by Jacob Wren

There is a joke that is sometimes made about Jacob Wrens new book Families Are Formed Through Copulation. The joke is that Families Are Formed Through Copulation is a book designed to convince the reader not to have children (or if they already have children simply not to have any more).Why should the reader not have children? Well, first they should honestly try to assess just exactly how they feel about their own parents. If this proves insufficient perhaps they might also contemplate the fact that the world we live in isnt particularly fit to bring a child into. Keep in mind this is only a joke. Mr. Wren is well aware of the fact that essentially he will convince no one. That people will continue to have children regardless. Families Are Formed Through Copulation is also a book that continuously hovers on the verge of becoming a novel, focusing on a distorted family situation that can certainly be read as that of a single family but just as easily can be seen as the multiple, overlapping experiences of many different families, perhaps even all families. This narrative ambiguity parallels the thematic moral ambiguity of the extreme situations the characters continuously find themselves within, never losing sight of the fact that our feelings towards our own families are some of the most personal and intense emotions we are capable of experiencing.Finally, and most ironically, Families Are Formed Through Copulation describes what happens when one such family comes into contact with a particularly convincing and conflicted conspiracy theorist, sharply parsing the paranoia and media-saturated secret service logic of the times in which we live.

Genres: Fiction

60 pages, Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Jacob Wren makes literature, collaborative performances and exhibitions. His books include: Polyamorous Love Song, Rich and Poor, Authenticity is a Feeling and Dry Your Tears to Perfect Your Aim. As artistic director of the interdisciplinary group PME-ART he has co-created performances such as: En français comme en anglais, it's easy to criticize, Individualism Was A Mistake, The DJ Who Gave Too Much Information, Every Song I’ve Ever Written and Adventures can be found anywhere, même dans la répétition. He is co-founder of the orchestra The Air Contains Honey whose first album is forthcoming in 2026. His internet presence is often defined by a fondness for quotations.

Reviews

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the notes at the beginning of this book, it sounds like this book was written as a stage production. It does have a little bit of a Spalding Gray vibe to it, especially if Gray was paranoid about people watching him from a white van (maybe he was). Some of the conspiracy talk almost made me give this a 3/5, but overall, I really liked it and it makes me interested to see more from this multi-talented Canadian.

[Jacob Wren]

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An excerpt:
http://radicalcut.blogspot.ca/2012/09...



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[Miguel de Plante · Rating 5 out of 5]

Grand coup de coeur sur cette nouvelle finalement très simple de Jacob Wren, dressant le portrait d'une famille qui, après avoir hébergé pour plusieurs mois un homme propice aux «théories du complot» et à une certaine révolte sociale, se met elle aussi à se politiser et adopter des comportements protestataires.

Le récit ne va pas vraiment très loin, mais c'est l'exercice de style qui est intéressant, et assez complexe, surtout pour la longueur limitée que demande le format de la nouvelle. Les quatre sections du texte sont déclinées en autant de styles de narrativité, où on passera du point de vue de la famille, de l'homme révolutionnaire, traitant de ses idées, ses craintes, jusqu'à sa paranoïa.

Le texte est court, mais ce fut tout de même un coup de coeur qui me donne envie de me plonger davantage dans le travail de l'auteur.

[Kathryn Mockler · Rating 5 out of 5]

7 Tragicomic Books That I Love: https://49thshelf.com/Blog/2023/10/02...

One of my all time favourite books!

[CJ Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Trippy

[J.A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Technology comes in. Sometimes at night instead of a book I hold a Kindle. This is an evolution. I am evolving. Readers are evolving. Yet: I zip open the cord on a package. The package arrived in my mailbox. The mailbox is posted at the end of our driveway, a red flag to signal when we have outgoing, the still icy winter hanging about. Inside of the package is a book -- Jacob Wren's Families are Formed Through Copulation. Matte cover, a beautifully engorged design with pinks and green, pages a thick buttery stock as rippled as water-color canvas. Holding its weight and words, I am once again mesmerized by the physical presence of a book." Read the full review, published in elimae: http://www.elimae.com/2011/02/RevWren...