In Tandem With
by Joseph Sands
A world is woven and unwoven in this groundbreaking tale of logic gone astray. Ben, an electrician and middle-aged bachelor, finds something odd in the local supermarket � an identical double who passes by him without so much as a word. From here on in, Ben becomes wrapped up in events and surroundings that grow increasingly out of sync with his own memory and his own reality. A daring and innovative story that explores the nature of the pattern within the pattern, and finds only chaos.
Joseph Sands has had his short stories appear in Geist, Prairie Fire, and Grain, all to critical acclaim. This, his first novel, was written at the University of Winnipeg while staying as a writer-in-residence.
"Sands' breakthrough first novel is a deftly twisted and labyrinthine work. Isolation and the real world, cracked open and expertly examined by a powerful new prose star." (Oksana Tseverskya, Head)
"It's hard to look around your own home quite the same way after reading In Tandem With... let alone your city, your universe -- Joseph Sands pulls it apart and paces it surprisingly quickly." (Andy Biggar, Glasgow Start)
"A little hard to understand, but I think I got enough to get scared, at least kind of. I don't know, I'm not a big reader." (Peter Mansbridge, CBC's The National)
Excerpt from In Tandem With
"Laundry flew from the closet as I heaved out mounds of pants, boxers, shirts smelling like lemon -- at least I thought it was lemonny, my own particular odour that no one else thought of as fruity or nutritious in any way, except maybe him, him sweating in it now, lemonning it up, with my own scent. What other explanation? I tore away my closet, eyes scanning the dark walls, but there was no sign of it. It is one of a kind. There is only one orange shirt, checked with yellow flecks, torn at the ass from nails askew on the job, sewed back together with red thread, because red's the only colour Martha keeps handy. There's only one, and only I wear it. I was frantic, mad, I wanted to punch the wall and open it up, unsurprised at the thought it should be drywalled behind everything. Why not? Did it make less sense than having seen it on the back of him, that me, the other one?"
244pp, 140mm x 210mm
softcover (fiction)
$14.95 (Can), $9.95 (US)
ISBN: 0=90210-26-4