Nylund, the Sarcophager

Fiction. "If Vladimir Nabokov wanted to seduce Nancy Drew, he'd read her NYLUND, THE SARCOGRAPHER one dark afternoon over teacups of whiskey. Welcome to fiction's new femme fatale, Joyelle McSweeney."--Kate Bernheimer. "You thought you knew your own language. This book hands it back to you on a platter and includes the instructional manual for its further use."--Michael Martone. NYLUND, THE SARCOGRAPHER is a baroque noir. Its eponymous protagonist is a loner who tries to comprehend everything from the outside, like a sarcophagus, and with analogously ornate results. The method by which the book was written, and by which Nylund experiences the world, is thus called sarcography. Sarcography is like negative capability on steroids; this ultra-susceptibility entangles Nylund in both a murder plot and a plot regarding his missing sister, Daisy. As the murder plot places Nylund in increasing danger, his sensuous memories become more present than the present itself.