In Transit: An Heroi-Cyclic Novel (Irish Literature) - Softcover

Brophy, Brigid

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1564783235 ISBN 13: 9781564783233

Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press, 2002

Synopsis

Set in an airport ("one of the rare places where twentieth-century design is happy with its own style"), In Transit is a textual labyrinth centering on a contemporary traveller. Waiting for a flight, Evelyn Hillary O'Rooley suffers from uncertainty about his/her gender, provoking him/her to perform a series of unsuccessful, yet hilarious, philosophical and anatomical tests. Brigid Brophy surrounds the kernel of this plot with an unrelenting stream of puns, word games, metafictional moments and surreal situations (like a lesbian revolution in the baggage claim area) that challenge the reader's preconceptions about life and fiction and that remain endlessly entertaining.

About this title

About the Author:

Brigid Brophy (1929-1995) was an acclaimed novelist, essayist, critic and campaigner. Her fiction included Hackenfeller's Ape (1953), The King of a Rainy Country (1956), Flesh (1962), The Finishing Touch (1963), The Snow Ball (1964), In Transit (1969), The Adventures of God in His Search for the Black Girl (1971) and Palace without Chairs (1978). Her non-fiction included Black Ship to Hell (1962), Mozart the Dramatist (1964), two books about Aubrey Beardsley - Black and White (1968) and Beardsley and His World (1976), and Prancing Novelist: In Praise Of Ronald Firbank (1973). In 1954 she married the art historian Michael Levey (later the director of the British National Gallery from 1973-1987, knighted in 1981). The couple had one daughter, Kate. Brophy was a noted campaigner on several platforms, in particular her fight to establish an authors' Public Lending Right and her vice-presidency of the National Anti-Vivisection Society.

Christine Brooke-Rose, formerly a professor at the Universite de Paris, and now retired, lives in France. She is the author of several works of literary criticism and a number of novels, including Amalgamemnon and Xorander.

From Library Journal:

This rather odd 1970 Irish outing calls itself a "heroi-cyclic novel." Protagonist Evelyn Hillary O'Rooley, having trouble deciding on her/his gender, undertakes a series of tests while waiting at the airport for a flight. Still on the avant-garde side.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 1564783235
• ISBN 13: 9781564783233
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 235