Arborescent

&bull; This debut novel was recommended to us by Joshua Whitehead, author of the Lambda Literary Award-winning novel <i>Jonny Appleseed</i>. <i>Arborescent</i> is Marc Herman Lynch’s debut novel; he is the president of the Calgary literary magazine filling station and a literary organizer. He has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Calgary currently works at Mount Royal College as a writing and learning strategist. He identifies as mixed-race (Chinese/French).<br> &bull; <i>Arborescent</i> is a striking novel both in content and form. Divided in three sections, the book focuses on three individuals whose stories interconnect with one another: a cis-gender, white male named Nohlan Buckles who turns into a tree after his father inexplicably explodes; a first-generation immigrant named Hachiko Yoshitoshi, whose staging of Yotsuya Kaidan causes the ghost of this kabuki to manifest; and a second-generation immigrant teenager named Zadie Chan, who unwittingly begins to produce doppelgangers as she tries to reconcile family divisions. Their startling stories delve deep into the concept of “otherness” and its physical and psychological manifestations in racialized bodies.<br> &bull; In his own words: “I wrote this book to explore the reality of immigrant characters, those who were born within Canada and are disconnected from their culture. My parents escaped their respective cultures, and tried to reframe themselves within Canada but were always being singled out, whether due to their accents, skin colour, or both. My reframing now originates from a lack: a space of uncertainty, an absence. I am both identifiable and non-identifiable: called white when it suits one and BIPOC when it suits another. It seems I can make no claim for space, and I can neither see myself as identifiable nor invisible (something that my parents probably hoped for me, which is why they refused to give me a Chinese name or one that would be, at face value, too identifiably French). This thought process has led me to realize that there are very few representations of us alienated immigrants, especially those that record the everyday realities of our lived experience: how do we negotiate these waters? Our story is so much more than just just reconciling identity or the conflict between host and home countries!”<br> &bull; Blurbs by Lambda Literary Award winners Joshua Whitehead and Larissa Lai, among others.<br> &bull; As an absurdist, highly contemporary novel that speaks to the immigrant experience, <i>Arborescent</i> will attract a great deal of attention.<br> &bull; This book will appeal to those interested in BIPOC literature and fantastical fiction. The age range will likely skew younger than older (i.e., under 50).