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"I" For Immortality
Flo’s grandmother Mara is eccentric, independent and obsessed with art – just like Flo. But Mara’s time is nearly up.
On her deathbed, Mara asks Flo to glaze her portrait with a mysterious serum gifted by her long-estranged friend Bernie, whose rainforest expedition eighteen years ago first sparked Flo’s passion for painting.
Once glazed, Mara’s portrait seems to come alive.
Flo confronts Bernie, but his ancient, plant-derived magic pulls her into a world of dread, desire, immortality (perhaps) – and a nightmare from which she may never escape.
“I” For Immortality is the second release from The Book of Exquisite Corpse, a collection of stories inspired by the surrealist word game of the same name. This short novel is about the desire to touch eternity.
On her deathbed, Mara asks Flo to glaze her portrait with a mysterious serum gifted by her long-estranged friend Bernie, whose rainforest expedition eighteen years ago first sparked Flo’s passion for painting.
Once glazed, Mara’s portrait seems to come alive.
Flo confronts Bernie, but his ancient, plant-derived magic pulls her into a world of dread, desire, immortality (perhaps) – and a nightmare from which she may never escape.
“I” For Immortality is the second release from The Book of Exquisite Corpse, a collection of stories inspired by the surrealist word game of the same name. This short novel is about the desire to touch eternity.
204 pages, Paperback
First published July 15, 2021
4 people want to read
About the author
Anna Tizard
9 books11 followersI tried to categorise my books in a more sensible way (they’re currently "Weird-wonderful", "Quite Serious" and "Meh") but the cross-overs were just too many - and then I realised that I actually like this.
We’re living in an amazing era for fiction where genre writing can and should be as delicious and nutritious as the “best” literary work (and some of these high-brow prize-winning books could learn a thing or two about plotting from their genre neighbours). Fantasy for children is also enormous fun for (people pretending to be) adults. Why differentiate?
I write Deeply Weird fiction. Lately this involves making up stories based on a random word game called Exquisite Corpse; my favourite thing is to explore the strangeness of the human mind through a fantasy, imagining what our thoughts might look like if they were places, creatures or objects come alive. Subscribe to my newsletter for your free ebook copy of my latest release, "The Empty Danger": https://annatizardsubscribe.ck.page/e...
Oh, and please let me know if you’ve come across any amazing books about portals! Having spent a large chunk of my childhood in Narnia, I’m a little bit obsessed.
We’re living in an amazing era for fiction where genre writing can and should be as delicious and nutritious as the “best” literary work (and some of these high-brow prize-winning books could learn a thing or two about plotting from their genre neighbours). Fantasy for children is also enormous fun for (people pretending to be) adults. Why differentiate?
I write Deeply Weird fiction. Lately this involves making up stories based on a random word game called Exquisite Corpse; my favourite thing is to explore the strangeness of the human mind through a fantasy, imagining what our thoughts might look like if they were places, creatures or objects come alive. Subscribe to my newsletter for your free ebook copy of my latest release, "The Empty Danger": https://annatizardsubscribe.ck.page/e...
Oh, and please let me know if you’ve come across any amazing books about portals! Having spent a large chunk of my childhood in Narnia, I’m a little bit obsessed.
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August 30, 2021
A thought-provoking tale of a painter’s brush with immortality.
This book amazed me. It’s got that rare quality of being both strange and ordinary, fantastical and grounded, whimsical and insightful. There’s an impressive scope and depth to the book, and the story is told so deliciously, that I devoured it in one sitting.
This is the second of Anna Tizard’s ‘Exquisite Corpse’ series where the story is inspired by the results of a word-game. You may read that and think the story would turn out gimmicky and contrived, and in the hands of another author, perhaps it might. But this book is one of the most honest and brilliant explorations of art that I’ve read in ages. For every artist out there, it’ll speak to your dreams and fears, and pull you in heart-first. There’ll be at least one sentence that will hit you between the eyes and make you think. Guaranteed.
One of the most impressive things about it is the way in which the plot is revealed. It’s split into several longer parts, and each of them is slightly different in tone (and even genre) from the last. Imagine moving through a gallery of paintings that range from one period to the next. You could start with a Renaissance portrait and end with an abstract still-life, but it wouldn’t feel jarring because you could trace the connections through the gallery. This book is similar. It’ll take you on a journey that begins in one place and ends up somewhere completely unexpected, and yet, the whole thing fits together as a whole. It’ll take you from domestic family drama to horror/slasher movie to whatever the term for literary abstract expressionism would be! It’s wild, and yet, it somehow works.
If you want a book that’s different to anything else out there — a book that will make you think, and ultimately leave you feeling satisfied — this is the book for you. It’s bonkers, but brilliant, and I wouldn’t want to imagine it any other way.
This book amazed me. It’s got that rare quality of being both strange and ordinary, fantastical and grounded, whimsical and insightful. There’s an impressive scope and depth to the book, and the story is told so deliciously, that I devoured it in one sitting.
This is the second of Anna Tizard’s ‘Exquisite Corpse’ series where the story is inspired by the results of a word-game. You may read that and think the story would turn out gimmicky and contrived, and in the hands of another author, perhaps it might. But this book is one of the most honest and brilliant explorations of art that I’ve read in ages. For every artist out there, it’ll speak to your dreams and fears, and pull you in heart-first. There’ll be at least one sentence that will hit you between the eyes and make you think. Guaranteed.
One of the most impressive things about it is the way in which the plot is revealed. It’s split into several longer parts, and each of them is slightly different in tone (and even genre) from the last. Imagine moving through a gallery of paintings that range from one period to the next. You could start with a Renaissance portrait and end with an abstract still-life, but it wouldn’t feel jarring because you could trace the connections through the gallery. This book is similar. It’ll take you on a journey that begins in one place and ends up somewhere completely unexpected, and yet, the whole thing fits together as a whole. It’ll take you from domestic family drama to horror/slasher movie to whatever the term for literary abstract expressionism would be! It’s wild, and yet, it somehow works.
If you want a book that’s different to anything else out there — a book that will make you think, and ultimately leave you feeling satisfied — this is the book for you. It’s bonkers, but brilliant, and I wouldn’t want to imagine it any other way.
Displaying 1 of 1 review