Stunt

by Claudia Dey

Eugenia Ledoux wakes one morning to a note on the kitchen table: “Gone to save the world. Sorry. Yours, Sheb Woolly Ledoux. Asshole.” Eugenia is nine years old, a synaesthesiac and a tightrope walker. She adores her father and his lunatic charms; she loves that he takes her fishing in the middle of the night and calls her Stunt. Sheb has always promised he’ll one day take her to the moonscape of northern Ontario, where astronauts train; instead he writes a note, blows up a shoulder-pad factory, and leaves. His heartbroken daughter is left behind with her mother, the sharp-edged former ingenue Mink, and her sister, the death-obsessed and hauntingly beautiful Immaculata.

After a fake funeral for Sheb, Mink vanishes too. Eugenia and Immaculata, left alone, double in age overnight. Immaculata becomes a swan-like giantess, and soon finds her calling caring for Leopold, a diseased and irresistible malcontent down the street. Eugenia, however, stays the same: dark and diminutive, and bereft. She finds herself a bicycle and sets off to track down her father, encountering an astronaut and a waitress named Cupid along the way.

Stunt is the first novel by one of Canada’s most acclaimed playwrights. Like synaesthetic Eugenia, your senses will be addled as Dey’s words take on colours, tastes, and smells, somehow coming to mean more than you thought they did; they depict, with compassionate hilarity and luminous heartbreak, the love between a girl and her father.

Genres: Fiction, Canada, Contemporary

220 pages, Paperback

First published April 14, 2004

About the author

Claudia Dey is a bestselling novelist, playwright and essayist.

Dey’s third novel, DAUGHTER, out now (FSG and Doubleday), is an Instant National Bestseller, named a New York Times Fall Fiction pick, an Elle Magazine Book of the Year, a Lit Hub Unmissable Fall Book, and A Globe and Mail Autumn Best read. Claudia and the novel have been featured in Interview Magazine, BOMB, Document Journal, Hazlitt, The Walrus, and more. The New York Times calls DAUGHTER, “A darkly glittering tale…beautiful and piercing.”

Heartbreaker, Dey’s second novel, was shortlisted for the Trillium Book and Northern Lit Awards, named a best book of the year by multiple publications, and is being adapted for television. Her debut, Stunt, was a finalist for the Amazon First Novel Award. Her plays have been produced internationally, and nominated for the Governor General’s, Dora and Trillium Book Awards. Dey has worked as a horror film actress, a guest artist at the National Theatre School, and an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto. Her fiction, interviews, and essays have appeared in The Paris Review (“Mothers As Makers of Death”), McSweeney’s, Lit Hub, Hazlitt, The Believer, and elsewhere.

Reviews

[Magdelanye · Rating 4 out of 5]

I need another world, one that will force me to forget.... p166

In grappling with this rather frenzied hopscotch of a novel it occurred to me that CD has pulled off a mighty stunt, and that it was working on me. The writing is fresh and vigorous and there are many wonderful character descriptions. Problematic is that there are no certain characters and a very sketchy plot. The middle is a morass of emotional bravado and fantasy. Just when I decided I've had it, a stunning gem of an observation would keep me from abandoning the book back to the library. The stunt is how CD brings coherence to a fundamentally incoherent outpouring, going off the rails without crashing, even bringing the reader quietly to some kind of conclusion.


It's hard to believe that this is a debut novel. On the other hand, this could only be a debut novel.
It's certainly hard to classify or rate. Two for the parts I hated, for the confusion endured.
Four for the clever metaphors and the novel approach to family dynamics.
Five for this sentiment on p214

...you wanted to host picnics on the weekends because there were more suicides on the weekends, and if people were together on a blanket, sharing sandwiches, they might forget to kill themselves.

She is not trying to provoke. Rather, she does not abide by the rules of civility. p170

Actually, I think she is trying to provoke while not entirely alienating the audience. For this is high theatre laced with deep insight and I will eagerly read her next offering.

[Sally · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm always skeptical when a first-time author tries pull off something this far out. Why not build up some legitimacy with a more "normal" novel first? (Answer: because writing a "normal" novel is probably a lot harder.) Occasionally I'm proven wrong about this (see "Having Faith in the Polar Girls Prison"), but not in this case.
It's easy to stand out when you write something weird, but that doesn't mean it's good--it just means you get to skip all the conventions of a more mainstream novel, like plot and believability. To me, this gothic-surrealist poetry-novel reads like a student's work.

[Sara · Rating 1 out of 5]

Despite all the characters being completely unlikable, at times I really liked the writing and the story, which was always really quickly destroyed by all the pretentiousness and useless and stupid use of analogy, here an example "my eyes are round wet blisters, drowned fatherless birds" just wouldn't recommend it to anyone

[Karen King · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dey has a great voice and great characters. Very original. It's also great that it takes place in Toronto.

[Grief · Rating 2 out of 5]

I appreciate the style of how the book is written, but I found this book incredibly hard to read and understand what was going on. Almost 4/5 into the book and I still didn't really know the plot or the story or where Eugenia was. Maybe I'm just a bad reader, but this was not the book to get me back into reading.

I get that this is the vibe that Stunt is aiming for, but it's just not a book for me.

Two stars for some pretty beautiful descriptions though. Even if I'm not too sure what it's describing sometimes

[TylerJPB · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked this up after reading Claudia Dey's second book Heartbreaker. Her writing style is weird and dense and wonderful, this one even more so than her second outing. At times it can feel difficult to parse - like reading an old English play - but the payoff of focusing is great. A simple, if not odd, story beautifully told.

[Jilly Hanson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this, I really did. I loved Trout Stanley. But this is just too much weird image work/metaphor/what-the-fuck-is-even-happening for me. There are parts where I liked what was going on, but yeah. Too much weird stuff for me to actually enjoy.

[Christopher Fry · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was originally going to give it one star, but toward the end she kind of saves the story. It's prose and I don't read prose, so found it difficult. I read this during the time of covid-19 and it's kind of a perfect book for this event.

[Elese · Rating 5 out of 5]

I looooved this book and the stream of consciousness narrative style. It is like extended prose and i couldn’t put it down.

[Jude · Rating 5 out of 5]

best book.

[Juushika · Rating 4 out of 5]

When her father abandons the family leaving just a note behind, nine-year-old Eugenia begins a journey--through sudden adulthood, in search of her father, towards their tightrope-walking ancestor. Magical realism on a Toronoto landscape, Stunt is a tale of the half-believable strangeness of personal experience on the fringes of suburban life. Dey's voice is abrupt and image-laden, a near opposite of lyrical prose; instead it mirrors transcribed spoken poetry, and while that style can initially be difficult, it develops a strong and easily-internalized rhythm: at first the book seems strange, but after a hundred pages it's the outside world which seems strange, and simple, and arrhythmic. Stunt approaches its subject matter as though in a dream, but defines it with nuance and intricate, private detail; the combination is something like portraiture, sketched here, painstakingly detailed there, creating a complete image which is convincing not despite, but because, of its stylization. It's not a flawless achievement, and obscurely dense paragraphs, underexplored elements, and offputting aspects linger. But in many ways Stunt reminds me of Haven Kimmel's Iodine , another obscure and strange novel about one woman's bizarre life: it surprises me not at all that Stunt is all but unknown, and I doubt that a United States release would change that; both stranger and more normal than it seems, it will find a small audience and sometimes hold even them at a distance. But Stunt is also remarkable. In an age overflowing with suburban angst, this is something different: a liminal view of almost-normal life, strange and inexplicable, and at its best defiantly real. Eugenia walks tightropes, and so does her book: it's an uneasy journey, a dangerous one, but the view (hers, and ours) is beautiful. I'm glad I was pointed towards this book, and recommend it in turn.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautiful book. It took me months and months to read because I found myself going over and over the same pages for fear of missing anything. The way she frames things is incredible it really is poetry as a novel, which i love!!!! It is so whimisical and fun. I loved "mrs and mrs. nextdoor" and the twins. The plot is fun, but it was the language i really fell in love with. I like that the author was brave enough to get so out there with prose. It's refreshing after reading so many books where the dialogue takes center stage and the rest of the novel is nothing more then a stingy frame. Beautiful book, i will read it again and again just to enjoy the language.

[Tiff · Rating 3 out of 5]

The last ten pages of the book are some of the most beautiful I've ever read. But the book as a whole just didn't grab me. The writing itself is gorgeous, truly poetic, but the plot seemed overblown. Maybe I just didn't understand what the book was trying to accomplish? As soon as I read the first page, I knew it wasn't going to be my type of book. I don't have much else to say, unfortunately! There isn't anything technically wrong with it, and I can understand why some would even be mesmerized by it. I'm just not one of those people.

[Aaron · Rating 1 out of 5]

This wasn't a bad book simply because, as others have said, it's "poetry disguised as a novel." It's a bad book because it fails to do that well. Dey seems more concerned with the words she's supposed to use than the truth she's supposed to reveal. 'Stunt' reads like a drunken tangle and fails to either tell a story or resonate an experience. When I was finished, I felt nothing aside from relief that I was done and confusion about exactly what Dey was trying, and failing, to feel.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

this was a quest story, a treasure hunt story. the main character reminded me of Scout from To Kill A Mocking Bird. i loved the characters & their quirky odd lives. set in Toronto, this book had a magical feel to it. i'll read more from this author.
for those looking for traditional chronological linear narrative, this isn't for you. but if you don't mind skips & hops all over the place, i highly recommend this book.

[Zanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found it pretentious at first, then just let the rhythm and beauty of the writing overtake me. I cried when I finished this book because I had to give it back to the library (not put of any civic sense, I just didn't want to deprive others of this book). I will find another copy, in order to savour the sentences again and again. I would have liked something done with the main characters' synesthesia, though.

[Deanna · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just didn't get it. 9 year old Eugenia's father disappears. Two days later her mother disappears. Then somehow her and her sister turn 18 two days later and each leave for their own adventure. I just couldn't wrap my head around this. Especially when Eugenia meets a man who she ends of living with and they become lovers. She is 9 years old!! It's just weird.

[Myriam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved it! Creative and intense. Surreal the way Isabel Allende's books sometimes are. Because the locale (Toronto) is familiar to me, it gave it an interesting flavor. One of the best new writer's books I've read in a long time.

[Tricia Dower · Rating 3 out of 5]

An incredibly creative book that took me a long time to finish because the prose is so complex and the plot shifts surreal. I finally surrendered to the language, forgetting about trying to follow the plot, and enjoyed the experience.

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the random collection of words placed so exquisitely into sentences then woven into something that is absolutely delicious to read. Thoroughly enjoyable to read, I am sure I had a haphazard smirk every time I picked this one up.This one Is on my to buy list.

[Shirarose · Rating 2 out of 5]

Poetry disguised as a novel.

[MaryJohanna · Rating 2 out of 5]

I agree with what others have said: Poetry disguised as a novel.

[Kirsten]

Such an awesome book. Not done yet, but reading it is a trip.

[Ilena]

extra terrible. weird incest subplot.

[Lisa Nikolits · Rating 5 out of 5]

A poetic gem of a book. Such imaginative and startlingly lovely imagery. Not for everyone, this is a surrealist's delight.

[Jo-Lane Birkigt · Rating 4 out of 5]

very different than I'm used to, although I did like it.

[M.K. · Rating 3 out of 5]

You have to love magical realism to enjoy this novel.