Apastoral: A Mistopia

by Lee D. Thompson

A Miramichi Reader "Best Fiction" of 2022
Winner of the 2022 New Brunswick Book Award for Fiction.

Harold "Bones" Malone is an unnatural thing. Convicted of murder, he is tried and sentenced to become Constock, a new penal system wherein the worst of society have their brains transplanted into farm animals — pigs, goats, even llamas; and Bones' case, a Shetland Sheep. Not wanting to live out his days in petting zoos, or fleeing from other animals in rut, Bones decides to make a run for it, to return to the city and, somehow, clear his name... But the Constockade is vast, little sheep, and is patrolled by wolves with prison-guard brains.

"This is a novel that's bleak and funny, down beat but bumptious. You can see Lee inverting mores, ideas, professions, moods, logic, and the bestial nature of the human animals in ways that says this is all madness!" Jeff Bursey, from the Introduction.

"[A] biting satire of penal systems and performative justice that skewers its victims and their advocates as cleanly as it does the authors of a system that would surgically insert the brains of convicts into farm animals. Lee D. Thompson’s writing is propulsive and inventive, bursting with energy, wit, and silliness." Leslie Greentree, author (Fiction judge, 2022 NB Book Awards)

"A stream-of-consciousness excursion into the animal mind of human suffering that chills to the bone even as it tickles the rib. Its unique brand of brutality reads with the haunting familiarity of a recurring nightmare." Steven Mayoff, author

"The book reads with the zest of a Marx brothers caper, with all the layers of humor, the periodic moments of seemingly simple genius, a wealth of detail, and plenty of narrative shifts." Rich Harsch, Publisher

Purchase at coronasamizdat[dot]com (original edition) or your online dealer of choice.

280 pages, Paperback

Published July 15, 2022

About the author

In addition to being the publisher at Galleon Books....

My fiction has been published in five anthologies, including Random House’s Victory Meat, New Fiction from Atlantic Canada and Vagrant Press’s The Vagrant Revue of New Fiction, and in more than a dozen literary journals across Canada and the US. First novel, S. a novel in [xxx] dreams, was published in 2008 by Broken Jaw Press. Mouth Human Must Die was published by Frog Hollow Press in 2017, and the novel Apastoral: A Mistopia with Corona/Samizdat in 2022.

I was "late" to reading fiction, in my mid-twenties, and fell in love with hard Sci Fi. I loved the concepts but not the prose and soon I was wandering to Orwell and Vonnegut and Huxley all gateways to Kafka and Melville, then Joyce & Faulkner & Pynchon & Gaddis & Donald Barthelme. Joseph McElroy changed how I view sentences. Flann O'Brien let me be me. And somewhere in there I started writing, getting published, and, for better or worse, developing my own style.

Reviews

[Jeff Bursey · Rating 5 out of 5]

(Read this in manuscript a few years go.)

Hilarious, sad, sarcastic, imaginative -- so many things canlit isn't know for! Especially that from the atlantic provinces, where dreariness and the ocean, the endless effing ocean, and fish or lobsters, are considered essential elements in all stories worth their salt. What better way to refute that than to talk about land animals of the human and non-human kind in an at times mean, at times heartfelt, way?

Penal imagery abounds as does captivity within various meat suits.

Ignore the introduction by some useless w****r or remove it with a fine razor blade; focus on Lee's words and images. They'll stay with you.

(Putting in today's date because I can't remember when I read it.)

[Lee Thompson]

This my book, obviously, and I'll not stick a rating on it. I do love it and am thrilled to have it finally in print with Corona/Samizdat. I'll say this, it's a challenging read at times, is often of two minds, or three, and the author (that's me) loves playing with narrative style, but the intent is always to amuse, engage, and evade.

[Jerrod Edson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Admittedly, this novel is way out of my comfort zone, much like driving a Ferrari; uncomfortable but fast and fun, and most importantly, so cleverly crafted. Thompson hits the gas from the get-go, going from zero to a hundred in a blink, and doesn’t stop until it’s finished.

I’m not going to talk about the plot. Trust me, it’s not your typical CanLit novel. And thank god for that. I’m not going to try to explain Thompson’s dystopian world where criminals live in farm-like penal colonies after their brains have been transplanted into animals’ bodies. Instead, I’m going to focus on what matters most to me with anything I read; the quality of the writing.

This story would have crashed and burned if left to a lesser hand, but Thompson has an eye for precisely what words go where, and instead of it coming off as a mindless, jargon-laced ramble, it reads as both organic and deliberate, on the cusp of veering off the road, yet still, always in control. For a writer, that manic balance is extremely difficult to achieve; think A Clockwork Orange (To boot, Thompson’s hoodlums are clearly reminiscent of Burgess’). It’s obvious Thompson considered each and every word, then reconsidered, rearranged and then considered again, until he found that natural flow that makes you forget you’re reading. Here is a veteran writer at the top of his game.

This sentence, for example (yes, it’s only one sentence):

And sometime during the night Hog’s eyes focus on me and he watches me watch the television, watch the latest Constock Watch, pundits pondering who would be next and trying to match criminal with animal, thumbs up or thumbs down, viewers calling and giving their opinion, and much laughter, Squidley the Kidney Thief oh he would make a good lemur, and the Prime Minister saying good night all with a joke about a petting zoo and a monkey and a cake and a file and recalling the early debate, not whether putting the brains of criminals into animals was ethical, but what the program should be called.

Reading this novel has expanded my horizons for what fiction can be; wildly original, simultaneously polished and raw, controlled in its chaos. It’s just so frickin weird, and so much fun.

[Kevin Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve been fortunate to read some really amazing books this year. Take Apastoral and plop it on the top of that pile. From the first sentence (No one knows what triggers it, that waking connection between hindbrain and forebrain, that spark firing across a foggy gap). Damnnnnn this is good writing. Right out the gate. Like George Springer taking the first pitch deep into left. Like Cat Stevens’ “Don’t Be Shy” that starts off Harold and Maude. This ain’t the same book you’re used to.

Featuring some exquisite sentences that are McElroyesque and the most original narrator in recent memory, Bones, this is a novel not to sleep on. No being sheepish around this book (hahaha). This is what makes unique literature. Highly recommended. I’ll echo what Jeff Bursey said in his intro, it’s a book you’ll wish you could read for the first time, I’ll just say this, I reread the first part immediately after finishing the book this morning. Yeah, I’d say that this is a good book. Please check it out here:

https://coronasamizdat.com/index.php

[Rick Harsch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lee D. Thompson's mistopian satire is a hilarious romp through a dark tale of alternative incarceration, the pastoral notion of removing the brains of criminals and inserting them into the skulls of farm animals and wolves (no fucking cats--the PM hates cats, shipped them off on barges like Irishfolk). Our narrator is the pettiest of petty part-time crooks, framed for murder and brained into a sheep. The book reads with the zest of a Marx brothers caper, with all the layers of humor, the periodic moments of seemingly simple genius, a wealth of detail, and plenty of narrative shifts. I suppose there are surreal passages, but as with shifts in time and perspective, when it is done well no particularly unusual effort is necessary on the part of the reader. If you take as your starting point that the protagonist is going to have his brain put in a sheep, you're going to have to stray a little--and oh how little, alas--from the sordid reality of your day. And the last two sentences of the book illustrate this well, all of it, in one of the best endings I've read in a long time. (Try not to look.)

[Marc Nash · Rating 5 out of 5]

Video review https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UzA7...

[Nick Voro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Disclaimer: This review is not a true review. It is more of a summary composed of the author’s own words. Call it an enthusiastic proclamation. I leave reviewing to the real reviewers. I am simply sharing my enthusiasm for the work with this summary / prose collage.

*

“Let me clear up a few things before judgement sets in. I say I am a man in a sheep’s body, but is that entirely true? I breathe into a sheep’s lungs, and sheep’s blood flows through my sheep’s heart. I eat sheep food and shit sheep shit. My hormones are a mixture of man and sheep.”

Things are ahoof.

You feel what I felt: shock, terror, denial, sorrow and back to terror.

The Name’s Bones... Bones the Wooly Blue-Eyed Sheep with a Human Brain. There’s a scar on the back of my head. I know it’s there. I feel it throbbing. It never ceases to throb. It’s a crescent moon that I can’t leap as children in their beds count until sleep enshrouds them.

The bastards have done it. Look at how f*cked I am. Pretty fucking funny, isn’t it?

Just a minute Bones, let me tell Your Story for this condensed Review. The full version is yours, of course. They’ve taken your freedom, but they cannot take your story away.

So where did Bones leave off... Ah, yes, the operation. The f*ck-ness of the surgery, dear reader. The throbbing makes more sense now, the persistent headaches, when you are conforming the human brain into the confined space of a sheep. But only criminals get this privilege. The guinea pigs for the program known as Constock.

This is the futuristic world of Lee D. Thompson’s Apastoral. A world where technological advancements have made this possible. Innovating and Frightening. Immoral and Concerning. Ethically and Morally Questionable. A world where Bones becomes part of the program. Bones, with his honest face and troubled past, the unsuccessful insurance fraudster/petty criminal caught up taking the rap for a jewelry store heist gone bad. An Einsteinian in its brilliance, fool proof plan to rob a jewelry store, The Carat Top, and leave no shiny rock unturned. The smoothest heist ever... NOT. Now... abandoned by his petty criminal friends and their plea deals, Bones is alone, and in the hands that are not his own.

He is, in fact, in the hands of the government. The Big Brother. The Prime Minister’s hands. Prime Minister with his Nation’s Joke of the Day, a gag reel slash visionary madman. In the hands of Constock, while Constock Watch televises everything, the righteous television brainwashing the masses, pundits pondering who would be next and trying to match criminal with animal. Bones, the unlikely protagonist, paraded, televised, made an example of, although not the first (No, Sylvester Moll was the first, the accused mass-murderer of children, forever squealing in rage when his brain made its way inside of a pig) but certainly part of the earlier batch, the first waves of test subjects/convicts to face such a punishment. With his rights stripped away, his trial begins. A monkey trial, or in this case, sheep. A trial where the trial chair spins with a push of a button from the presiding Judge, the same controller that controls the lights, guilt meters, and the advertising panels. Court Technicians are stationed everywhere. Attorneys attached to harnesses fly past large monitors displaying Trial Scores, past the jury made up of the audience in attendance and paid subscribers.

Frightening isn’t it? Frightening because this can be our reality. Bones’ only rights are to be fed, housed appropriately and collect a minimal pension which will pay for his yearly medical check-ups and finally his funeral. What a world. A world of woolly trouble. The world which is depicted here is a regressing world. No one wonders if this is ethical. A stolen life. A stolen mind. A stealing of control over oneself. Animal/Human Testing is at hand. Bones is the subject. Will the program succeed? Would it ever be stable? “You can graft an ear onto a potato, you know, but you can’t predict what it will hear.”

Switching narratives, plenty of drug ingestion and created dream-like often nightmarish states, planning of a heist that will have you in stitches, the CCC Complex-The Constockade-The Isle of Conquestador where human bodies roam around with animal brains, a watch tower patrolled by wolves with brains of prison guards, a sequence involving a Musca domestica on the drums in a Kafka Metamorphosis fashion and a favorite involving a Colosseum-like gladiator battle between a sheep a goat and a mass murdering pig wearing a cape.

The glorious unpredictability of it all. Whatever you need, you will find it here. The cure for terminal boredom. The book that brightens up any room. Enlivens any conversation. A comedic Tour de force, a novel for our Now Times as we look toward our collective uncertain future, and finally a book packing enough Don DeLillo’s prescience to serve as an astute observer’s commentary and a warning all at once.

They gave Saul Bellow the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1976. In-part for his work dealing with those, “...disaffected by society but not destroyed in spirit.” Hope. Not hope-lessness. Hope. Something I’ve felt while reading Lee D. Thompson’s novel. No matter how bad things had gotten, and they sure did escalating’ly get worse, there was always hope.

Before I wrap up this review, I also wanted to say, there is also something to be said about Lee opening the barnyard doors on what we often as individuals want to lock up to make ourselves feel better about, or not think about, at all. Imprisoning animals. Keeping them locked up. Breeding them for food. This book allows us to spend time with them. Walk in their hooves. To literally humanize animals. Animals that know death. Saw death by the billions at the hands of the human. Saw death’s head come flaming from the blackness. Spewing fire. Killing everything it could reach. Turning everything to ash. A wasteland where we are surely heading. And this has nothing to do with the ethics of eating meat but is more of a reminder of how we are contributing to our own extinction through our hunger and greed for the evermore, always more. Perhaps, therefore, the humans having animal names, and the animals having human names makes perfect sense. Because we are One. A reminder. And yet, we imprison. We segregate. Are we not all allowed on the same farm with the gates unlocked, allowed to graze without monitoring by guardians with shotguns and razor-sharp knives? Ah, grass for thought.

So join Bones as he navigates labyrinthian passages while getting used to the foreignness of a body that is not his own. Let deeper into the darkness. Noose tightening, teeth sinking in. He keeps escaping. But he is tired of escaping. Who can escape anything, anyway? One trap to another. Is the answer in the mind? Can the outcome be changed with the power of the mind and the body of a sheep? That’s for you to find out, dear reader. But I can almost hear you screaming now, “Justice? What the hell is justice when you have no control over the placement of your own brain? The storing of that complex organ. When one day you are a man, and the next, a sheep. A man in a sheep’s body and men sheer sheep and eat sheep and imprison sheep...”

And what I have to say is, “Close your eyes, little sheep. And hopefully you won’t dream of wolves. There’s that word again, right… Hope.”

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imagine a cross between Animal Farm, A Clockwork Orange, and Lord of the Flies, but funnier. The time is, presumably, near future—the world, its inhabitants, buildings and machines are similar to today’s, as are the bureaucratic morals, which in the case of Apastoral, allow for surgeries upon criminals newly convicted of committing capital offenses that place their brains into the bodies of various barnyard chattel—pigs, sheep, and cattle, mainly—since chattel are less expensive to maintain than prisons. (By the book’s end, the punishment has been extended to tax evaders.) The narrator, Bones, is transformed into a sheep after being wrongfully accused of murder during a jewelry store heist gone wrong.

Bones’s pals—Hog, Weasel, and Goose—keep the same names throughout—they’re gang members together (except when the threat of imprisonment looms), and gangs tend to give their members colorful names. This simplifies matters for readers once they’ve all had brain transplants but occasionally disorients as the narrative switches (frequently) from pre- to post-surgery settings. Society in general seems to approve of these new measures, initially, except for a few radical groups that are PETA-like in their aims—i.e., they are more outraged by what is being done to animals culled for brain transplants than they are the civil rights of criminals whose bodies are disposed of after surgery.
The transplanted human brains are joined to the more primitive part of animal brains to facilitate processing sensory input from the animals’ bodies. Human thoughts function largely as before, but if the animal’s sense of fear kicks in, it’s almost impossible for reasoning cogitation to regain control. This is no Mr Ed on a mass scale—the animals don’t talk, but human brains inside pigs (smart mammals) allow them to control their hooves well enough to scratch out words in the dirt. Nasty serial killers in human form become nasty killers in animal form, and without language or an ability to effectively communicate, organizing uprisings is well-nigh impossible. Escape is difficult; remaining inconspicuous once on the lam (sorry!) more so.

Lee Thompson’s thought experiment takes the program to its logical conclusions, minus little piggies going to market for consumption at home. What becomes of Bones, our anti-hero, is what this little gem sets out to explore.

For more of my reviews, please see https://www.thebookbeat.com/backroom/...

[Wade Gavin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a uniquely bleak and hilarious novel. A taste of what this gem has to offer:

‘And I wondered if I were allowed to watch my death in advance, would I? Weasel said he wouldn’t, not a chance, while Goose said he’d do nothing but, would watch until he died of starvation, which would mean he’d be watching a video of himself watching a video of himself starving to death while watching a video…’

‘And soon I'm raging, kicking chairs, pounding fists on knees, tables, windows. I write long letters of explanation to the media, only to have them publicly analyzed and dismissed. Judging from his use of grammar, I read, his long sentences and tendency to jump from tense to tense, not to mention his over-reliance on the comma and his latent disdain for the semicolon, we are clearly dealing with a psychopath.’

‘In twenty years, I read, human-to-bird brain transplants may be the norm. Easier to feed, care for, and to cage. Clip the wings, and what worries do you have?’

‘I can't look you in the eye because Im a man, and men are terrible, we stick our heads up our asses and say we see God.’

‘You’re a wobbly table in a pub, Bones, accept it. There’s a piece missing and it will always be missing and no amount of coasters will fix that wobble.’

‘This is a human sickness, laughter. Mutated crying is what it is.’

Ridiculous, sad, and genius. Do yourself a favour and read it.

[Andrew Merritt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Strange things are ahoof at the Circle K…

Equal parts darkly funny and humorously bleak, Apastoral envisions a new method of incarceration - that feels less satirical and more terrifyingly possible with each turn of the page - brought to life but the wonderful and imaginative writing of Lee D. Thompson. Special thanks to Nick Voro for bringing this author to my attention, and to Rick Harsch of Corona/Samizdat for publishing him

[David]

Every now and again I get an idea for a trio of books that would go well together in a 13-week upper-level undergrad English course. This is my newest: Apastoral joined with Animal Farm and Giles, Goat-Boy.

Thompson manages to combine horror, humour, nightmare, nightclub comedy, sex & sacks (among other things) to produce this "mistopia." And somehow, with all that goes wrong, and all the potential for even worse, the narrative emerges into the light. Hilariously funny and deadly serious, this novel doesn't so much examine the Human Animal as the Animal Human: all our civilization is so much slippery veneer.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review at https://miramichireader.ca/2022/11/ap...

[John A · Rating 5 out of 5]

Original, unreliable storytelling with a tremendous narrative voice. We experience the ultimate dehumanization, and somehow laugh in the face of existential dread.

[Jack Everett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Apastoral: A Mistopia is set in a dystopian version of Canada, where criminals, once found guilty of their crimes, have their brains transferred into the bodies of farm animals. With a premise like this, Lee Thompson takes on an odyssey like no other. This book is hilarious, and it's been a long time since I've laughed out loud while reading. Thompson's mix of confident and lively prose, along with his layering of jokes and fantastic dialogue, makes this a treat to read. When writing reviews, I hate to give examples of other media, but this is like if the book Animal Farm and the film The Lobster had a baby in the form of a prison novel written by the Coen Brothers. 

What Thompson does so well is that throughout this zany novel, he explores some pretty interesting and serious themes. His takedown of the modern judicial and prison system is a spectacle to behold. Placing it in the first-person narrative, we, the reader, share and feel our anti-hero's confusion, sadness, and fear of his new-found circumstances. We are thrown into this scattered and fractal mind as our main character becomes accustomed to his new body and being. This is where some of the humour originates, but in the back half and the final act of the book, it's where we see a lot of pain. It's this constant struggle between confinement and escape both in the mind and spacially. What does it mean to really be trapped and imprisoned? 

While reading Apastoral, it got me thinking about the power of anthropomorphic tales and how, often, the messages and themes they convey are ten times as potent. It has the strength to hit harder than a narrative with just human beings; think of Watership Down, Charlotte's Web, and even Finding Nemo or The Fox and the Hound. It could be that we find animals to be innocent and pure, and when they act like us, it leaves us feeling shattered. There's something to this that goes beyond the Instagram word count. 

To finish, don't sleep on this novel, and please make it part of your next C/S order. It makes me proud and excited that work like this comes from Canada. Apastoral: A mistopia should be considered one of the all-time great satires. 

[Black Glove · Rating 4 out of 5]

A rollicking yarn expressed with gritty panache. A bloody nightmare scenario where criminals get punished by transplanting their brains into farmyard animals. Particularly liked it when the writing went fever-dream delirious. Funny, disturbing, warped. Good one.

[Jackson · Rating 4 out of 5]

You know the Shaggy Dog? The remake with Tim Allen, of course. Where he puts his job before his family and ends up learning the importance of fatherhood only after being transformed into a, well, shaggy dog? Yea, this book is a lot like that. Or like that movie Brother Bear. But also a lot like Kafka’s the Trial; the court proceedings leading up to the forced animorphism are wacky and nonsensical.

The human transformed into something else to learn a lesson trope is a little overdone, but what if there is no lesson to be learned? What if it reflects the North American penal system? What if rehabilitation was never actually the point? Thompson manages to do something new with it that kept me engaged.

Very funny at times. My favorite part:
“Judging from his use of grammar, I read, his long sentences and tendency to jump from tense to tense, we are clearly dealing with a psychopath. We even have evidence of poetic leanings and rumours of juvenilia, an unfinished science fiction romance written in his virgin years. This is worrisome, as it’s an indication of excessive masturbation, which is prove to addle the mind.”

[Patrick Fassnacht · Rating 5 out of 5]

inexplicably artful. and a wondrously-magnificent joyride.

[Jake Beka · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of, if not the best, novel by a Canadian author I have ever read. Truly inspiring.

[Pierre · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Canada, and maybe outside of Canada too, Canlit has a bit of a reputation that it can’t seem to shake, which is that it’s pedestrian, domestic, a kind of boring kitchen-sink realism. Picture a sheepish (pun intended) Raymond Carver. Or, better yet, consider Canlit’s poster child: Alice Munro (recent allegations notwithstanding). It’s got a pastoral aura about it.

I think the best thing I could say about Lee D. Thompson’s Apastoral, which is aptly titled for so many reasons, is that it is so anti-Canlit: it’s wildly funny, original, and downright bonkers in the best way possible.

Thompson takes on an acute and important problem in society: incarceration. What should we do with our criminals, who currently become part of a justice system that is better at dehumanizing and humiliating than it is at rehabilitating. So Thompson says fuck it, let’s drop the façade and imagine a society that literally dehumanizes its criminals by transplanting their brains into various farm animals.

The premise is great. But what I really enjoyed about Apastoral was the narrative structure. We get the story of Bones, told from his perspective, but in a non-linear and fragmented fashion. The narrative kind of reflects Bone’s brain’s struggles to assimilate into its new host/body (a sheep).

Anyway, I don’t want to give too much away, but I highly recommend this book. The premise is interesting and the execution is solid. But mostly it’s just a fun read. Check it out.

[Jeremiah Prenn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I want to preface this review by saying that though I'm the only reviewer on Goodreads to give this three stars, it is a strong three stars, and a three stars from me is still a good rating. The reason my rating isn't higher is because I felt a lot of the narrative drive that had been built up in the first part so well was deflated in the middle. But aside from that, this was a great read. The way Thompson uses dystopia (or "mistopia") as a source of black comedy, the degree to which that mistopia is absurd, reminded me very much of Terry Gilliam's film "Brazil" while reading. The central conceit of the book is creative and nightmarish, taking a part of already existing human society that here is so warped that it provides a kind of alienation, an alienation necessary to see many different subjects (which Thompson explores with speed and originality) with fresh eyes. Lee Thompson pulls it off.

[draxtor · Rating 5 out of 5]

my review will just be the last actual word in this novel: beautiful.

[Jonah]

3.6 🐏/🐑
Good book,
Few sections flew coup imo.

[Andrew Sare · Rating 4 out of 5]

Plodding through Can-lit I'd read Atwood's Oryx and Crake and Alexis' Fifteen Dogs, and starting into Apastoral I feared for a second that I was going into a similar scene driven human consciousness in animal dystopia. My fears only lasted a fraction of the book as Thompson lets the weird develop, adds distinct synoptic expression, bends ways of thinking, churns in animalistic humor and raises the stakes. As I had just started to do, I so often describe a book by comparing it with others (whether fellow goodreaders are likely to have read the other books referenced or not). Here though we have a unique voice and vision. Well done.

[Lisa Nikolits · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fabulous book! Imagine Animal Farm meeting Guy Ritchie in a pub and the creature that walks out the bar is Apastoral, a remarkably original, absolutely hilarious, unfiltered animal unlike any other. Well yes, it’s a sheep named Bones but Apastoral’s gangster noir, kick-ass (kick-hoof?) satire is a refreshing, laugh-out-loud ride from start to finish. Droll, sharp, sexy and quite brilliant, I loved Apastoral from start to finish.

[Sandra Bunting · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent selection of prose and poetry. great cover by Nsncy Schofield.

[palencar · Rating 5 out of 5]

A few months later I still can’t stop thinking about this book. It has an aroma I really can’t put into words but it’s stuck with me