Product Description
The actor who can’t leave the stage – like the sales rep who lives in transit, the stenographer who throws himself on the mercy of the court, the chess master who fakes his own funeral, the judge who swears in witnesses to his dream of auto-execution or the student who steals the identities of excursionists to the Veste Oberhaus in Passau – is at the end of his rope. The personal catastrophes catalogued in the reports, notices, anecdotes, aphorisms and parables that make up Proofs, as in those of its model, Thomas Bernhard’s The Voice Imitator, arose in the nature of things, as the final entry ‘pseudonym’ remarks in a tribute to Bernhard.
“In the brilliant literary parabolas of his fictional debut, Christopher Conti shows himself a modern master. Sharply etched, sardonic, witty and wise, these stories, if that’s what they are, turn a contemporary chronicler’s eye to the way madness and death play havoc with our bizarrely managed lives. Conti writes with urbanity, elegance, and that rarest of gifts – a true originality.” — Nicholas Jose
“Reminiscent of Calvino, Bernhard or Borges, these are quirky, original and elegant tales – counterfactual excursions into the outer-space of the everyday.” — Gail Jones
Christopher Conti lives in Sydney with his wife and their three children. Proofs is his first work of fiction.
REVIEWS
“Chris Conti’s Proofs was the most experimental work published in the year. It is a collection of 103 micro-biographies. Each is a bite from history or the news; a Borgesian miniature of a whole novel; a satiric look behind the scenes at the desperateness of our existences. The 103 jig-saw pieces make up a cryptic social history of Australia, and also a self-portrait of the writer—or the reader—take your pick.” NIGEL KRAUTH, Westerly
“Christopher Conti’s debut book of short stories, Proofs, is comprised of an exhilarating, absurd and sometimes perplexing collection of catastrophes listed in fictional news articles, notices and anecdotes. With encyclopedic scope, Proofs is an investigation of the human condition, covering miscellanea such as the Australian judicial system, the “Raging Reporter from Prague”, Egon Erwin Kisch, Sinology and Charles Sturt’s final expedition.” REBECCA STARFORD, The Australian
