Ancestry of Objects

A young woman meets a man at a restaurant, and they have an intense affair that rivals her desire to end her life. The Ancestry of Objects is a story of the narrator's affair with David, who is married, graying, and in need of change. It explores religion, the mystery of her absent mother, and the ghosts of her grandparents, and memories form the web of her identity and voice. It is a masterfully written novel that parses the multiplicity of selves who become a part of us as we push to survive.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 200 pages
Publication date: 24 September 2020
Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing

A young woman meets a man at a restaurant. They exchange words only briefly, but by the end of the week, he has entered her world with an intensity rivaled only by her desire to end her life.

Told with the lyrical persistence of a Greek chorus, The Ancestry of Objects unravels the story of the unnamed narrator's affair with David: married, graying, and in whose malcontent she sees her need for change. Religion, the mystery of her absent mother, and the ghosts of her grandparents haunt her meetings with him. Memories start, stop, and loop back in on themselves to form the web of her identity and her voice—something she's looked for her whole life.

Nothing can fill the voids of time and loss; not God, not memory, not family, and certainly not love.

At once intensely sensory and urgently erotic, The Ancestry of Objects parses the multiplicity of selves who become a part of us as we push to survive. This is Ryckman—a master of the obsessive, desirous, complex exhaustion of human relationships—in peak form.

Weight: 132g
Dimension: 177 x 126 x 21 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781646050253