Five Legs and Communion

by Graeme Gibson

First published by Anansi in 1969, Five Legs was a breakthrough for Canadian experimental fiction, selling 1,000 copies in its first week. Five Legs is the subversive tale of two guilt-ridden young men, Lucan Crackell and Felix Oswald-one a professor, the other his student-caught in the grip of the North American Protestant ethic, with its emotional web-spinning and sexual torments. Gibson captures both their mortifications and their spirited resistance to all things WASP, themselves included, in stream-of-consciousness prose that is at once fluid, disjointed, and hilarious. This is essential reading for any Canlit junkie, and quite a trip.

Paperback

Published January 1, 1979

About the author

Graeme Gibson CM was a Canadian novelist and conservationist and the longtime partner of author Margaret Atwood. He was a Member of the Order of Canada (1992) and one of the organizers of the Writer's Union of Canada. He was also a founder of the Writers' Trust of Canada. Gibson was best known for his 1973 book Eleven Canadian Novelists, a non-fiction work.