Felix Culpa

This slender novella is a meta-mystery in which most of the lines have been lifted from the 100 other books listed at its end. Each sentence or phrase is presented in double-spaced isolation on the page. Because the narrative is fragmentary we are invited to – almost literally – read between the lines. Ostensibly about a writer-inresidence at a prison – as Gavron has been – who becomes obsessed with the death of a former inmate, it is primarily concerned with the nature of storytelling itself. That may make it sound tediously experimental but it is beguilingly intriguing and has a strange poetry. The experience of recognising half-remembered lines by other writers adds to the enjoyment. Neil Armstrong