The Last Days of the Lacuna Cabal

by Sean Dixon

The girls of the Lacuna Cabal Montreal Young Women’s Book Club are at a crossroads. One of their founding members is dead, they’ve made a few unfortunate compromises to their membership, some of them aren’t getting any younger, and they’ve been stuck on a single weepy tome for six long months. Resident maverick Runner Coghill decides to shake things up by introducing a cherished family heirloom to the group — ten pristine stone tablets, carved in cuneiform, telling the oldest story in the The Epic of Gilgamesh. Because their new book is written in an ancient language, the group must take the unprecedented step of allowing Runner to translate the whole story for them. But Runner’s narration is not of a common vein. Before they know it, the Cabalists have been thrust out to sea, on a journey in search of answers that extends halfway across the world to the war-torn land of this oldest story’s birth.

The Last Days of the Lacuna Cabal is an offbeat rites-of-passage novel whose characters live out literature with ferocity and passion. It is a funny, quixotic debut that follows the members of a shallow, squabbling, time-wasting, protracted-adolescent book club as they find themselves transformed through the alchemy of the storyteller’s art.

Genres: Fiction, Canada, Fantasy, Novels

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

SEAN DIXON is the author, most recently, of The Abduction of Seven Forgers (plus one falsely accused), which was recently described by Quill and Quire as a "hilarious yarn with a meditation on the meaning(s) of art and life" and a "genuinely excellent read."

Reviews

[Jen Kervin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Readers will either love this book or hate it. I have an appreciation for what the author does, though I couldn't even really finish the entire thing, and even getting to the 2/3 point was very difficult. I loves me some absurdity but this didn't resonate with me.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was one hell of a roller coaster ride, one might even say incoherent. For the majority of this book I was never sure whether it would be worth my time and effort in the end, but it was. I actually enjoyed it very much!

Everyone is this book is quite crazy, everything that happens in this book is even crazier.

One of the members of a rather extreme book club decides they need to read this ancient book she brought in its stone form. They also reenact it, and not necessarily with the consent of everyone involved. It eventually (in the very end) takes them on a boat trip around the world. And there's a little robot involved even!

That is really all I can say about it. It all went so fast, it al was so strange. And this is definitely a book I wouldn't be comfortable recommending to any of my friends. However, if you liked "Where'd You Go Bernadette?"(with all of it's quirks, emails, and also a strange boat trip!) and are up for an even stranger ride, you might still like to check it out.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

How I loved this book. I happened to be in Montreal while I read this book which gave me a better understanding of the book's setting. I loved the idea of a pair of narrators who miss out on all the main action. I loved the references to all the other books and authors in the story (many of which I had read). I finished it on the train heading back home and cried and cried and cried. I wonder what the original play was like.

[Tania Gee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Check out my review on the Write Reads podcast.
http://writereads.wordpress.com/2014/...

[Benjamin · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Last Days of the Lacuna Cabal is a tale, to give it its full title, about the Lacuna Cabal Montreal Young Women’s Book Club, a tale which is narrated by two of its members. One of the books the group chooses to read sends them off across the world in search of answers, and along they way we watch them deal with their problems including their love interests; the members of the book club becoming not just friends but a surrogate family.

The book sounded promising, so perhaps I was expecting too much from it for I found it disappointing. It is beautifully written, witty and at times very funny. Yet I found it un-involving. I think the root of the problem was that I did not find the characters appealing, such that I was not sufficiently interested in them to care particularly what happened to them. This is not to say that as characters they are not well-developed, for they are; I simply could not relate to them.

It is a book which I could happily pick up and read any part of and enjoy for the quality of the writing alone, but equally happily put down and not feel the urge to pick up again; simply because it did not inspire in me the need to find out what happens next.

The cover design, by Becca Thomas, is the result of a competition, it certainly is quite striking. The book was first published under the title The Girls Who Saw Everything.

[Udai · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do you believe it in your heart that books are magic? Have a book ever saved you?

Did you ever pick a book only because of its beautiful cover, only to find out that it is a poem dedicated to your younger self?

My teenage self would have loved this book, and that’s why I love it even more.

You read for these moments of magic. MAGIC!

[Akita · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book get's a bit carried away and some parts seem crazy. Wasn't sure if I liked it at first. After reflection I can honestly recommend this book.

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

Move along...nothing worth wasting valuable time on!

[Rob Frampton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sorry, just didn't get it...

[Kim Johnstone]

DNF ... Holiday reading gets 30 or 40 pages to grab me before I move on, and this one didn't.

[Julie Failla Earhart · Rating 2 out of 5]

According to author Sean Dixon’s blog, his novel, The Last Days of the Lacuna Cabal, is based on the premise of “What happens when your average everyday book club reads the oldest book in the world?” My answer would be that is gets really weird.
The Lacuna Cabal Montreal Young Women’s Book Club is not, and I repeat, not your “everyday average book club.” First they met daily. Second, they are a young women’s group which includes a man-who-wants-to-be-a-woman and a ten-year-old boy, who continually scribbles in a notebook and becomes the unwittingly hero of the story. Third, the club does it best to go to the places, or a reasonable facsimile of where the action occurs. Fourth, the story is so convoluted that the narrators must use footnotes.
The story is told from the point of view of two members, Jennifer and Danielle, who cobble the story together from the daily notes that are kept and a play written by another member, Emmy. The girls’ running commentary, along with the aforementioned footnotes, creates an illusion that, as narrators, the girls are unreliable. Did what happen really happen, or did they misread the meeting notes?
When Runner Coghill is fed up with their current selection, she brings in ten cuneiform tablets that her father owned. Only she can read them, but the story is continually interrupted by Runner’s adventures, other book club member’s adventures, and a quest to find the oldest living man in the world.
In my opinion, The Last Days of the Lacuna Cabal has some major drawbacks. Dixon never explains what lacuna cabal means. I looked it up and I think I get it; I did learn two new for Scrabble though. Also, Dixon never reveals (or I missed it) the name of the “single weepy tome (the book club) been stuck on for the last six months.”
Review originally appeared on www.armchairinterviews.com

[J.S. Watts · Rating 4 out of 5]

I struggled with the ratings for this one. It deserves more than three stars, but wasn't a full four star read for me, nevertheless I found it to be a well-crafted and enjoyable read, a picaresque romp through The Epic of Gilgamesh via downtown Montreal.

I enjoyed the casual, laid back and humorous style, though it's somewhat laconic tone meant that I largely remained at one remove from the characters and never felt fully engaged with them. For me, this was a book of dry, casual wit and literary references, rather than emotion.

Basically, the book's narrative mirrors (allegedly, I've never actually read it myself) the ancient Epic of Gilgamesh via the frequently surreal/ever so slightly magic realism style adventures of a Canadian book club, made up of a group of quirky social misfits who consciously decide to re-enact the Epic of Gilgamesh and then end up unintentionally re-enacting the Epic of Gilgamesh.

It's a slow-burn book to begin with: episodic and disjointed, as is Gilgamesh, and with gaps in the narrative flow, likewise with Gilgamesh. The lacunae meant that not all plot lines were resolved by the end of the book and I found this a tad frustrating - can anyone explain to me the significance of the stripy, dual-coloured pseudo- wood louse woman? All in all though, it was a fun read, though perhaps a little over-hyped by Harper Collins. I doubt that it is of a calibre to be "The novel that everyone will be talking about".

[MagdalenaMagdalena E · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really such a good book. I can understand why its not to some peoples taste because I did read about two thirds of it thinking 'I have no real idea what the hell is going on!' but in actuality, I think Sean Dixon has really written a piece of genius here. There is really little character building, its hard to put a face to each of the characters and its written so 'of the moment' that its hard to remember what happened a few pages back. I think what he's managed is no mean feat though. Throughout the book you are stuck in the present and I've never experienced that with a book which made it really refreshing. Also the writing is incredibly witty, the footnotes are fantastic and its hugely funny. In fact, I loved the foot notes so much that I am not on my first book since reading it and keep looking to the bottom of the page hoping there will be footnotes and being disappointed that there aren't! Well worth a read if you want something very funny and very very witty.

[Miriam · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ok, I didn't finish this one, but I read 2/3 of it and it was torture. I hear that the last 50 pages there is actual plot and character development but the rest of it was just "look at me, I'm a writer, I can have a plotless novel about weirdos and you will read it because it's a published book with a catchy blurby plot on the jacket." Sorry, but that doesn't cut it for me. I love an innovative style and I'm WILLING to go with not having ANY info about where things are going for MOST of the book. But this book ABUSES readers and makes them feel stupid and uncool. And you know what, that makes me hate it. And so, I am giving one star for the first time. Mostly because I tried REALLY REALLY hard to think of a thing I liked about this novel and I couldn't think of one. Sorry, but I just hated it. Maybe you won't. But I did. Now I will go back to my regularly scheduled programming.

[Initially NO · Rating 1 out of 5]

'Huh?' was my thinking for most of this book. 'Mitt warmers'... does mean gloves or fire lighters? Thinking about that symbolism got me no where fast. I read the entire book hoping for something and got nothing. The author probably would sneer and say that's because I'm a 'stupid boorish Australian'. Some authors forget engaging readers is more important than making them think, 'huh? I don't get it so you must be more intelligent than me oh author of supreme mitt warmer symbology.' Which, we don't, because we have egos too and lots more books to choose from which actually speak to us.

(I got interested in this book when a competition was run to illustrate the cover. This cover isn't the same one on the book I read from my local library. That was a swirly line drawing with a ship and sea. Actually I like this one more. A five star book cover, but not so for the internal pages.)

[Jaimie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can see how this is either a love-it or a hate-it book. I really, really liked it! So much more than I expected to, in fact. Usually I very much dislike books that have descriptions like "different people come together and their lives intertwine in unexpected ways".

This book's salvation was its quirkiness. I am such a sucker for quirky, somewhat strange and out-there books. I can forgive many of its faults because I saw what the author was striving for, and I totally get it. I also liked it because it tackles such huge, gigantic life issues (think life vs. death, depression, sexual reassignment surgery) pretty well, while still managing to be a light read and not a drag-me-down deep book.

[VeganMedusa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Trying to be very clever. Not really succeeding, in my opinion. Lots of outrageously quirky characters, but no one to identify with or like or care about.
My main problem with this book, though, is one particular scene. If a man has his way with a woman who is injured, drugged and hallucinating, we'd call that rape. So why is it supposed to be funny if it's a woman raping a man? Oh yeah, because he's a nerd who's a virgin. But then he falls in love with the woman, who was only acting out a part for the book club, so she pretends to be in love with him while manipulating him with lies and then she breaks up with him when her job is done, breaking his heart. Yeah, hilarious, that is. It's not rape because men always want sex! Especially nerds! He should be grateful!
Yuk.

[Carole · Rating 4 out of 5]

My advice to anyone that starts reading this book: Keep Reading! There were a few times there in the beginning when it was going in circles that I almost put it down. But I am so glad that I kept reading. This twisted story about The Lacuna Cabal Montreal Young Women's Book Club is not what you expect it to be. The group has been through a lot of trauma over the last 6 months which has changed the way that they conduct their meetings, eventually sending them on a journey they never expected to take- and they didn't even know where they were going! Without spoiling it, I can't really explain the ins and outs of the story- I can only assure you that it was a great read!

[Mark · Rating 1 out of 5]

God, this was so bad. It was the only book that I can remember not finishing. Sean was trying so desperately hard to create a colourful assortment of wacky characters all doing exciting and interesting things. BUT IT JUST DIDN'T WORK!! I couldn't believe how bad the writing was. I didn't believe in any of the characters - they were just a hodge-podge of loose ideas. Nothing about it rung true. Nothing made me care. The more I read, the angrier I got that trees had died in the making of this travesty.
I passed it on to several trusted friends and consensus was reached that it was a dog with fleas.

[Dantanian · Rating 3 out of 5]

A perfectly fine and good modern, and one that makes the egregious idea of starting a book group a fine and imaginative idea. The book too is wildly imaginative within it's narrow limitations. Very clever stuff, but for me only really became engaging in last third of the book.It certainly didn't 'blow my mind' , a process maybe hampered by the characters being only 2 thirds fleshed. It's a book the like many you feel worthy for having read it rather than because you particularly enjoy it. It's a grander effort, on a small scale, than many, though.

[Derek Harmening · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Lacuna Cabal Montreal Young Women's Book Club is on its last legs. Zealous member Runner Coghill decides to boost some much-needed morale by selecting The Epic of Gilgamesh--in its original stone tablet form--for their next read.

Of course, simply reading isn't enough. They must experience it, and they do, living out each scene in exceedingly absurd ways, even casting unwitting strangers into roles that begin to infringe on and complicate reality.

Somewhere, in all the endless quirkiness, there's a serious tale about gender, empowerment, and the immortality of fiction.

[Nicky · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really quite a strange books, and i can't quite tell whether I enjoyed it. It revolves around a girls book group, full of misfits and sad backstories. Defining the last days, the book starts at crisis point as two, then 3 strangers are drawn into the group and an epic retelling of the story of Gilgamesh, that takes on a life (and some deaths) of it's own.

[Rhlibrary]

think this pretty much says it all about this offbeat novel about a ladies’ book group at an epic crossroads: “”An intellectual, sexual, logorrheic, bibliophilic, cryptological, political, and archaeological rant of the first order. It’ll change your idea of what ‘written in stone’ means, and it’ll blow your mind too.”–Michael Redhill, author of Consolation

[Jade · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite a strange novel, but one which, once you can gets to grips with it has some lovely deep messages. The writing style was a little irratic and although this did compliment the theme of the book, it made areas more confusing than they needed to be. Overall though the story itself was both beautiful and tragic, and made me laugh and cry - the ingredients of a good book.

[Diana Duran · Rating 1 out of 5]

When I read in the notes that this was initially commissioned as a play, it all made sense. I don't think the plot translates to a novel, at all. But maybe it's just me. I couldn't get into it, I didn't become attached to any of the characters as they all seemed wrong. It all had a tinge of being slightly off.

[Carli · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wish there was a way for me to rate this "I HATED IT" because this book is awful. This was our bookclub read this last month (we've got some Brits who ordered it from amazon.uk) and not one of us enjoyed it. pretentious and ridiculous.

[Angie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't think I could even begin to explain the plot of this novel other than it's about a very odd bookclub that tries to re-enact the Epic of Gilgamesh. But it kept me turning the pages and made me laugh out loud quite a few times so it had to be good.

[Lydia Scho · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though the beginning had moments of muddled confusion, I really enjoyed this book. The second half killed off my doubts about the characters and story and I loved the resolution and the changes in each of the characters. Not the book I was expecting it to be, but a lovely read nonetheless

[Foreign]

UK: Clare Hey (pre-empt, for two books)

[Mel · Rating 3 out of 5]

will be getting as part of the 'first reads' program. Am excited to give it a try.