The Stand-In (ReSet)

A retired academic is called to a remote university to speak as the replacement for an old friend recently deceased in unusual circumstances. The Stand-In is a transcript of these lectures, revealing a sophisticated tale of art, fame, and adultery that unfolds through rambling anecdotes and flashes of scholarly grandstanding. Fiercely funny and bitterly ironic, The Stand-In has been called the best academic doppelgänger story since Nabokov’s Pale Fire.

David Helwig is the author of twenty volumes of fiction and fourteen volumes of poetry, an Officer of the Order of Canada, and former poet laureate of Prince Edward Island.