Tell it Slant

by Beth Follett

Tell It Slant is a bold, luscious first novel by Beth Follett, publisher of one of Canada's most exciting and respected small presses, Pedlar Press.

The novel tells – slantedly, of course – the story of Nora Flood, a young woman who lives between two sets of voices: those of her own fragmented desires and the internalized voices of western culture, which have always denigrated or refused her deepest desires. She struggles with these contradictory forces, overwhelmed, at times mute, seeking the roots of her psychosexual malaise, searching for the possibility of her own true voice, caught in an obsession that drags her away from the exploration of her own appetites and hungers into its sterile heart.

But through the interventions of Djuna Barnes, creator of the literary Nora Flood of Barnes' novel Nightwood, this Nora begins to slip between the cracks and fissures of obsession to shape a life of her own.

With language that is lush and startling and a shape that is disjointed and elliptical, Tell It Slant is a brave and beautiful book.

Genres: Fiction

160 pages, Paperback

First published May 31, 1997

About the author

Beth Follett is a novelist and the owner of Pedlar Press.

Reviews

[Beth Follett]

It took ten years to write.

[ken · Rating 5 out of 5]

All desire is insatiable and ultimately narcissistic.

I've heard it said a bunch of times before—Lacan has said it, and so did poets—but there is something about the conviction this time around. But also maybe the added jab about narcissism. I want to contest it, but a part of me thinks it true.

The whole thematic energy of Tell it Slant reminds me of Syzygy, Beauty: An Essay except told in prose and involves a lot more past-is-prologue back-and-forth, which I found is genius, the way it's handled. No explanations, no pre-amble. One is simply flung back with trust that one will get it.

And I don't think it's a recent occurrence for me to be entranced by narratives that blur the sense of time. As much as I see the merit in not binding oneself to one's past, it is still an unfortunate truth that one is still their past by way of influence and perspective.

Anyway. I appreciate how short it is. I don't think I can stomach it if it was any longer. The whole text is this heightened sense of emotion-experience that left me a little queasy, but every sentence is a delight, if one is delighted by a hand gripping one's heart.

[Christopher Sword · Rating 4 out of 5]

The main character, Nora, is extremely likeable despite her aimless trajectory through the book. I found it to be less of a coming-of-age story than an exploration-of-self tale. Though it has many elements that made me feel sad for her, the language through the writer and Nora and other characters was exquisite Carefully honed into a poetry-like form of music for the brain. It's a pleasure to read these words, no matter what they say and there are only a handful of writers who can achieve that level of artistry.