Vixen
- Publisher
- SisterPress
- Initial publish date
- Feb 2017
- Category
- Psychological
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9781988386003
- Publish Date
- Feb 2017
- List Price
- $14.99
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781895837001
- Publish Date
- May 2001
- List Price
- $19.95
Classroom Resources
Where to buy it
Description
“Broken and fragmented and beautiful and odd.”
When her lover Ruby is brutally murdered, Vivica searches desperately for answers. Propelled by the death of a junkie on a full moon weekend, and urged on by the cryptic ruminations of a busker, she sets out on a road trip to solve the mystery of what police are calling a crime of passion, an incestuous murder-suicide. But all is not as it seems. Accompanied by a chain-smoking private eye and her trusty companion Lizard, and pursued by the ominous Judge, her quest to find out what really happened to Ruby is driven relentlessly to its shocking conclusion.
About the author
Lynnette D'anna is a vagabond who has lived in Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto and Saskatoon after surviving childhood in the bible-belt of South-Eastern Manitoba. She is a sometimes-poet and author of the contemporary fictions Vixen (2001) and Fool's Bells (1999) â” both published by Insomniac Press; Belly Fruit (2000) and RagTimeBone (1994) â” published by New Star Books; and Sing Me No More â” published by Press Gang in 1992. Her coming-of-age novel, RagTimeBone, is also published in German as a YA fiction for lesbian and gay youth by Arguement Press based in Hamburg, Germany.
Excerpt: Vixen (by (author) Lynnette D'anna)
I keep Ruby's silver pistol beside me in my bed. Because something has escaped. Something lumbering and hirsute, with enormous paws, menacing and unpredictable. With bristling fur. Minor God spits and hisses into corners, puffed up to make herself ferocious.
Escape is always foremost in my mind. We walk the path with hollow hands, beneath ripe cypress to the misty waterfront, the driftwood benches, to the solitary loon who stands erect like an endangered photograph and never, never cries. These ocean waves the sound of matter slurped up by a vacuum, discarded bits of this and that, flotsam and shattered crab shell. If only we could cup our hands and take our fill instead of flailing with our empty fists. Instead of curving inwards, toying with despair as we oblige ourselves to do.
I can tell you any story. I can spin it any way I choose, and not one of you can challenge or correct me. I can tell you how she sang her arias for me; how she stayed with me long after I outlived my purpose.
I have made these memories. I have created them from nothing. I have plucked them out of the thin air and they belong to me now. You can only do so much with what you have left over after they are through with you. My story is my own, whatever you decide to make of it.
This then is my story.
Editorial Reviews
“Vixen reads like a diary where the character only notates her brilliant thoughts for the day. We don’t walk with her through mundane things. We don’t talk about brushing teeth or eating breakfast. It’s broken and fragmented and beautiful and odd. Each day is often much less than a page of writing as she carries us along, stumbling her confusion, trying, as we all do, to find herself. Glad I picked it up … and I hope you can enjoy it too.” GateGypsy, Bookcrossing
“Approach this novel with the care and thoughtfulness that you might a volume of poetry. The experience will be as pleasurable as the alluring cover promises. Vixen is definitely a book for the adventurous!” Moira Richards, Women Writers
“Reading Vixen is like visiting a supernatural peep-show. Those who like their novels to have the distinct aftertastes of blood, Seconal, and leatherette will enjoy the ride.” Marnie Woodrow, Quill & Quire