The November Optimist

The November Optimist is almost a love story. Combining fiction, observation and anecdote, its male narrator conjures a dialogue with a woman-his imagined counterpart, his willing or unwilling muse who sometimes lends insight, sometimes remains contrary and elusive. Full of jaunty humanity and black humour, our narrator registers ironies in a light-hearted manner when bemusements arise from his fully engaged citizen-walkabouts and caffeine fantasies. Ordinary events (driving and...
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The November Optimist is almost a love story. Combining fiction, observation and anecdote, its male narrator conjures a dialogue with a woman-his imagined counterpart, his willing or unwilling muse who sometimes lends insight, sometimes remains contrary and elusive. Full of jaunty humanity and black humour, our narrator registers ironies in a light-hearted manner when bemusements arise from his fully engaged citizen-walkabouts and caffeine fantasies. Ordinary events (driving and parking, walking and watching) are transformed by minute representation into something of almost surreal importance. The conversation extends beyond the woman to the city itself, to rain and seasonal change, to books and the escape they offer, the ways they inform what is possible and what is daily. Clouds and quays, neighbours and strangers absorb our narrator, as does fast time in both his city and in himself in this flâneur's look around.