The Incident Report
In a Toronto library, home to the mad and the marginalized, notes appear, written by someone who believes he is Rigoletto, the hunchbacked jester from Verdi's opera. Convinced that the young librarian, Miriam, is his daughter, he promises to protect her from grief. Little does he know how much loss she has already experienced; or does he? The Incident Report, both mystery and love story, daringly explores the fragility of our individual identities. Strikingly original in its structure, comprised of 140 highly distilled, lyric "reports," the novel depicts the tensions between private and public storytelling, the subtle dynamics of a socially exposed workplace. The Incident Report is a novel of "gestures," one that invites the reader to be astonished by the circumstances its characters confront. Reports on bizarre public behaviour intertwine with reports on the private life of the novel's narrator. Shifting constantly between harmony and dissonance, elegant in its restraint and excitingly contemporary, The Incident Report takes the pulse of our fragmented urban existence with detachment and wit, while a quiet tragedy unfolds.
Martha Baillie is the author of four novels. Her most recent, The Incident Report (Pedlar Press, 2009), was nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and was included in the Globe and Mail's list of Best Books for 2009. She has crossed the Arctic Circle on foot, hiking in Auyuittuq on Baffin Island, spent time in Pangnirtung and kayaked in East Greenland. She has written about contemporary visual art for the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Koffler Gallery and Brick magazine. Her poetry has appeared in Canadian journals. Martha Baillie lives in Toronto.
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