LOSING IT: A NOVEL by Alan Cumyn - BOOK - ADVANCE READING COPY

From the acclaimed author of Burridge Unbound, a finalist for The Giller PrizeSometimes those who have the most seem bent on throwing it away. Meet Bob Sterling, a comfortable middle-aged professor, specialist in the life of Edgar Allan Poe, married to a former student with whom he has a young son. In the space of a week his family, marriage, home, career, sanity, and life are brought to the brink of ruin in the aftermath of a trip he makes with a student, the intense young poet Sienna Chu, who tweaks into fluorescence a long-harboured, secret sexual fetish. Add to the mix the misadventures of his wifes mentally failing mother a shy night prowler and Siennas explosive techno-junkie roommate, and you have Alan Cumyns strikingly original novel Losing It. In some of the most hilarious and original scenes in contemporary fiction, Cumyn examines the dark undercurrents in us all, things which, if given expression, might lead us to risk everything. Losing It is a vivid portrayal of life in the urban context, a life full of complications, crises, familial crimes and misdemeanours.