Exploded View

by Jean McKay

Part fiction, part essay and part reminiscence, Exploded View is a thoroughly engaging look at reading, writing and life. Under headings such as Quaker State, Essential services, Hurricane and Kitchen sink, author Jean McKay considers topics as wide-ranging as crabapples, babies, macaroons, metaphors, toilet floats, death and acorns as she progresses through the alphabet, taking things apart and putting them back together in unexpected but always delightful ways. At every point in her journey, from Auffeurenpraxis to Zymurgy and beyond, she extends an amiable invitation to readers to participate in the excitement.

Exploded View is wry, tender and wickedly funny. It is also punctuated with the small thunderings of joy that only words in the right hands can create. From her resilient narrative perch, McKay moves easily from first person to third, from recollection to fantasy, from wisecrack to lament. Her book is an appealingly oddball miscellany, an exploded view not only of language but of one writers time on this planet.

130 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2001

Reviews

[Beth Whitney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book. Jean McKay, London author, uses the framework of letters of the alphabet to explore some autobiographical sketches, some writing exercises, some flights of fantasy, and some ruminations about writing, life, and experience. An extratordinary book, to be savoured over and over.