Sparrow Nights - Tapa dura

When his lover, Emma, abandons him, Darius Halloway, a professor of French literature, is devastated, but as his obsession grows, he is driven by erotic and psychotic extremes to seek the ultimate revenge. 40,000 first printing.

After she leaves you, how bad can it get? An exhilarating novel of erotic and psychotic extremes from one of Canada's best novelists. Everyone would agree that Darius Halloway is the most civilized of men--a professor of French literature, a connoisseur of ideas and women and wine, a perfect guest at life's dinner party. Darius himself would agree--that is, he would until Emma, waifish and insatiable Emma, leaves her empty clothes hangers rattling in his closet and walks out the door.For a little while, it's not so bad. He's in shock. He thinks she must come back. And other women find his melancholy quite compelling. But then the sparrows of insomnia start picking at the inside of his skull. And life's little aggravating moments seem to require him to seek direct retaliation. And all his smoothness and cleverness is soon directed toward wreaking the most elaborate revenge...and getting away with it. Until the ultimate revenge arises, and there he is, in the most damning of situations, with his nerves on fire and his heart in his throat...and finally not thinking of Emma. "If someone put a gun to my head and forced me to commit that most literary of misdemeanors--naming a voice of my generation--I'd first ask, do you mean...that part of my generation that kept a light shining in the chamber of their secretly flawed and sometimes sinful dreams? And if the answer was yes, I just know I'd blurt out David Gilmour." Bob Shacochis, National Book Award Winner "Gilmour is an honest craftsperson...using the almost old-fashioned materials of interesting characters, carefully wrought scenes, sharp dialogue, and genuine observations into human character." Toronto Star