From Our Staff | May 03, 2010
Deform This Book!
No, really!
Galerie de Difformité is the forthcoming novel by Missouri alum (and friend of TMR) Gretchen Henderson. Cribbed from the Lake Forest College website: “With the head of a novel and the body of a poem, Galerie de Difformité is a book that avoids any simple category. A mysterious bone with a heart-shaped hole. An infamous brotherhood called Ye Ugly Face Clubb. A lineage that bequeaths mysterious relics to an unsuspecting descendant, who shares the Author’s name but is not her, led through this labyrinth by none other than Dante’s Beatrice – at least, a deformed reincarnation named Bea.
“Galerie de Difformité is unlike any book you’ve read, yet traces of many books masque themselves into its fabric, challenging your notions, in the best ways, of what can be what, and how, and why. Structured as an art catalogue, with “choose your own adventure” directives, this hybrid who-done-it? invites readers to become active participants in its characters’ destinies and in the story itself. As each copy of the book physically and psychically deforms in any given reader’s hands, the Galerie deforms not only Beatrice Portinari, Gloria Heys, Gretchen Henderson, and the ties that bind them, but also contemporary “Subscribers,” who collaboratively inhabit its pages. Akin to a funhouse and curiosity cabinet, this novel-as-poem-as-essay-as-art grows outside of the bounds of the Book and, in the process, redefines deformity.”
Gretchen is looking for collobartors to “deform” her book. Check out the project here and get in on this unique opportunity. Submit your deformities in by June 1st to be considered for inclusion in the book; after, the online galleries will continue to welcome submissions for at least another year. She asked that everyone – friends and foes (foes? we have no foes!) – take a crack. If you’re looking for Gretchen’s work in a literary journal, peruse back issues of (to name just a few) The Iowa Review, Denver Quarterly, New American Writing, Black Warrior Review, The Southern Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, and Caketrain.
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