Lark at first hoped it was a simple nightmare: If she closed her eyes, she would be back in the mahogany bed of her spacious boudoir at Eddington Hall, and all would be well. Her father, the earl of Roxburgh, would not be dead by his own hand, and she would not be in Marshalsea debtor's prison.

Such was not to be. Ere the Marshalsea could do its worst, the earl of Grayshire intervened. Lark shivered, considering the mysterious stone-faced noble. He'd paid her bond while the rest of London turned an eye as blind as the one beneath his eye patch. But while his touch was electric and his gaze piercing, for what purpose had he bought her freedom? A plan including Cornwall, return to the world of the haute ton, and embroilment in a struggle against both England's own Admiralty and the French. But even more perilous, the ex-sea captain might plunder her heart. No, this was not a dream. As Lark would soon learn, her dreams had never ended so well.

Under consideration are two classics of Canadian literature, Nicole Brossard's "Picture Theory" and Margaret Atwood's "Surfacing", as well as three lesser-known works: Marlene Nourbese Phillip's "Looking for Livingstone", Beatrice Culleton's "In Search of April Raintree", and RTgine Robin's "La QuTbTcoite". Thompson develops a theory of 'holographic memory,' in which texts are performances that invite constant revision, remodelling, and interaction between narrative, memory, and, potentially, reality. This theory is informed by de Lauretis's semiotics of subjectivity, Derrida's memoire radicale, and physicist David Bohm's theory of holographic quantum reality.

Reading these works of Canadian literature through a theory of holographic memory, Thompson successfully combines literary and cultural studies without sacrificing one to the other. She adds to and creates an alliance between feminist, post-colonial, and marxist theory, furthering political work in each of these areas. The interdisciplinary nature of Writing a "Politics of Perception" will attract scholars and students in a variety of fields, including Canadian and QuTbec literature, comparative literature, women's studies, cultural studies, philosophy, and the social sciences.