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Fiction Literary

A Description of the Blazing World

by (author) Michael Murphy

Publisher
Freehand Books
Initial publish date
Apr 2011
Category
Literary
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781551117300
    Publish Date
    Apr 2011
    List Price
    $21.95
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781460400067
    Publish Date
    Apr 2011
    List Price
    $10.99

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Description

After Morgan Wells’s wife leaves him, a postcard from France arrives. It is addressed to a Morgan Wells—but not the Morgan Wells who receives it. Desperate to be led out of his despair, Morgan decides to read the postcard as a sign and embark upon a surreal journey to find, observe, and meet the other Morgan Wellses in the city of Toronto.

On the day that a 2003 citywide power outage submerges Toronto in darkness, a teenage boy finds a missive of his own: a copy of Margaret Cavendish’s The Blazing World, one of the first science fiction novels ever written. The boy, obsessed with the Choose Your Own Adventure series, interprets the coincidence of finding the book during the blackout as a premonition, and begins looking for proof that the end of the world is near.

A Description of the Blazing World interlaces two narratives in a novel about the city in the new millennium: a crowded space that incubates signs of an apocalypse that never quite materializes. But it is this very threat of imminent danger—that everything could go up in blazes—that drives a reclusive man and a lonely boy to search for their respective revelations.

About the author

Michael Murphy lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia. His work has been published in The Fiddlehead, The Windsor Review, and filling Station. He has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Windsor, and is currently studying at the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University. A Description of the Blazing World is his first novel.

Michael Murphy's profile page

Awards

  • Short-listed, Margaret and John Savage First Book Award
  • Long-listed, ReLit Award

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