An Exception

by Jude Fawley

When you’re ten years old, you’re told who the Architect is. Who is the Architect? Well, he’s the man that decided everything—your whole life, your parents' life, the dog's life, all that. And currently he’s on a mission to find new shoes. Here's the Book, it explains everything. Can you get him to change his mind? Good luck finding him, good luck convincing him. He doesn’t make very many exceptions.

196 pages, Paperback

Published October 2, 2017

About the author

When I first started writing, my mother told me, "Jude, that's not what an A is shaped like." And she was right, or at least it wasn't shaped like everyone else's. And the rest of the alphabet—similar problems, similar criticisms. But when you're a four year old, that kind of truth is much harder to swallow, and since I was obstinate my As were malformed for many years to follow.

What I would have argued, if I had my current perspective those many years ago, is that the shape of the letters never really mattered. The people that spent years practicing their penmanship, with their protractors and their rulers, never really had anything better to say. An A is nothing if it isn't in a word, a word is nothing if it doesn't have the context of thought, and a thought is nothing if it's coming out of stupid people.

So it came to be that the rest of my life, from the age of four to now, I've dedicated to the avoidance of becoming stupid, at the expense of my handwriting. It is my hope, then, that this will give context to my thoughts and meaning to my letters. With these thoughts I sit at a computer, using a keyboard rather than a pen, and string thousands and thousands of these letters together, so that they become books. It is up to you whether they have meaning. And if you find the font disagreeable, the medium by which these thoughts become accessible to you, it won't be my handwriting to blame, but rather some seventeenth century typographer who was just trying to make a living and is now dead. You can blame him, you have my permission.

Reviews

[Cookie M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely strange story about a world with a benevolent dictator. Your life is perfectly planned out for you by The Architect, and if you follow your Plan and the Guidelines he created you will have a happy life.
Don't worry. He doesn't turn out to be a monster or a Hitler, just a man, who knows what's best for everyone...except maybe himself when it comes to shoes...and what's going to happen to everyone when he's gone...and some other things.
But, don't worry. Just follow your Life Plan.

I loved it.

[Owen Wears · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an intelligent book. It's also infuriatingly accurate in its portrayal of human failings. The dry humor make it a pleasure to read, but you can't help putting yourself in the character's shoes. Once you do, well, it's all very sad. Sad little species, humanity, always looking for someone or something to tell us what to do. This is a damn fine book though, even if it did come from the brain of a human.