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Description
Chris Eaton, a Biography is a novel that arises from the idea that we have all been driven, at some point, to Google ourselves. And if you did, what did you find? That there are people out there who seem to have something in common with you? Dates, places, interests? How coincidental are these connections? And what are the factors that define a human life? We are the sum of our stories: Anecdotal constructs. We remember moments in our pasts the way we remember television episodes. In pieces. And we realize that our own memories are no more valid in the construction of our identities than stories we've heard from others. Chris Eaton, a Biography constructs a life by using, as building blocks, the lives of dozens of other people who share nothing more than a name, identities that blur into each other with the idea that, in the end, we all live the same life, deal with the same hopes and fears, experience the same joys and tragedies. Only the specifics are different. From birth to death and everything in between, the narratives we share bring us closer to a truth about what it means to be alive. To be you..
Contributor Notes
CHRIS EATON is the author of three previous novels, including Chris Eaton: A Biography, selected as one of the Books of the Year by Quill & Quire and the Toronto Star. He also spent many years making music in the band Rock Plaza Central. Chris currently lives in Ottawa with his partner and their two children.
Editorial Reviews
“Chris Eaton reaches for the impossible in his writing, creating characters and situations that could never be—and yet you find yourself believing in these texts as deeply as if these were your closest friends. These numerous ‘Chris Eatons’ may or may not exist, but the real Chris Eaton always knows where the story is going. You’ll want to follow him all the way.” —Emily Schultz, author of bestselling The Blondes
“Chris Eaton, a Biography is a remarkable collection of randomness. I can’t tell what’s true and what’s not but I don’t really care because ultimately it’s an ingenious look at our obsessions with identity framed by a grotesque overload of fascinating information, tenderly lampooning our desire to be experts at everything under the sun. One could say Chris Eaton has managed to invent a kind of super-ego by distilling and compounding all the Chris Eatons that ever lived into an avalanche of hilarious humanness.” —Charles Spearin, musician, Broken Social Scene
Rich, confusing and beautifully written in every line.- Jonathan Lethem, author of Fortress of Solitude and Motherless Brooklyn, on The Grammar Architect"Ask ten different people to prepare their own New Canadian Canon and you'll get ten very different lists. My own list would want to find a place for lively, inventive novels like Chris Eaton's The Grammar Architect."- Toronto Star, June 19, 2010"The Grammar Architect is a book you could easily read twenty times and still find new things to love about it. Eaton has written one of the most original, funny, beautifully written, and thoroughly complex novels of our young century."- Ghettoblaster Magazine, NYC"May well be the best Canadian novel of the year. This is the new."- Kitchener-Waterloo Record review of The Grammar Architect"An experiment worthy of Donald Barthelme at his most rascally... evidence of Eaton's status as one of Canada's most assured new writers."- Eye Magazine review of The Grammar Architect"...a clever satirical gloss on the sort of grave-robbing and body-stitching at the heart of derivative works such as A Thousand Acres and The Hours."- The Globe and Mail review of The Grammar Architect"...a burst of intricate, lyrical, well-developed writing, of a quality almost meriting the arrogant back-cover assertion that this novel is �like a pop culture Gabriel Garcia Marquez's work.' A distinctive literary voice emerges... "- Waterloo Imprint review of The Grammar Architect"...like being deluged by a tidal wave of words... Eaton is a sincere poet and each word is carefully chosen. "- Here Magazine review of The Grammar Architect"An informal, visionary voice we don't hear enough of in CanLit..."- www.goodreports.net"What any writer is after in some primary, essential way is a texture that is all his/her own. I hear Eaton's texture in these pages, strident, assertive, commanding the turf, engaging me at once and sustaining the melody all the way. His style is constantly in motion, his characters define themselves by the very style that encloses them, and his larger subversive narrative voice sets them up like a malevolent straight man reversing the equation."- Lawrence Garber, author of Tales from the Quarter - -
“A wondrous Oulipian experiment of a book, Chris Eaton, a Biography is like Tristram Shandyturned inside out and anagrammatized; instead of Uncle Toby, Corporal Trim, and Dr. Slop, we have Chris Eaton, Chris Eaton, and Chris Eaton, not to mention Hornet Cisa, Tina Cerosh, and Tonia Hersc. Overflowing with Eaton’s esoteric histories, Chris Eaton still manages to be slyly cohesive and profound.” —Gabriel Blackwell, author of Shadow Man: A Biography of Lewis Miles Archer
“Chris Eaton reaches for the impossible in his writing, creating characters and situations that could never be—and yet you find yourself believing in these texts as deeply as if these were your closest friends. These numerous ‘Chris Eatons’ may or may not exist, but the real Chris Eaton always knows where the story is going. You’ll want to follow him all the way.” —Emily Schultz, author of bestselling The Blondes
“A wondrous Oulipian experiment of a book, Chris Eaton, a Biography is like Tristram Shandyturned inside out and anagrammatized; instead of Uncle Toby, Corporal Trim, and Dr. Slop, we have Chris Eaton, Chris Eaton, and Chris Eaton, not to mention Hornet Cisa, Tina Cerosh, and Tonia Hersc. Overflowing with Eaton’s esoteric histories, Chris Eaton still manages to be slyly cohesive and profound.” —Gabriel Blackwell, author of Shadow Man: A Biography of Lewis Miles Archer
“Chris Eaton, a Biography is a remarkable collection of randomness. I can’t tell what’s true and what’s not but I don’t really care because ultimately it’s an ingenious look at our obsessions with identity framed by a grotesque overload of fascinating information, tenderly lampooning our desire to be experts at everything under the sun. One could say Chris Eaton has managed to invent a kind of super-ego by distilling and compounding all the Chris Eatons that ever lived into an avalanche of hilarious humanness.” —Charles Spearin, musician, Broken Social Scene
