The Baudelaire Fractal

The eldest daughter of a disappearing class, Hazel Brown, leaves her family at seventeen to seek a way to live. She wakes up in a badly decorated hotel room to find that she has written the complete works of Charles Baudelaire, weaving her reminiscences of her early life with episodes from Baudelaires youth and reflections on the history of tailoring, reading, and 19th-century painting. Lisa Robertsons debut novel explores life lived in pursuit of beauty and celebrates the mind of a girl.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 176 pages
Publication date: 24 August 2023
Publisher: Peninsula Press Ltd

Raised from infancy into uncertainty, I am as feminine as Rousseau. I, Hazel Brown, eldest daughter of a vanishing class, penniless novice, stunned by the glamour of literature, traditionless, clueless, yet with considerable moral stamina and luck, left my family at seventeen to seek a way to live. It was the month of June in 1979. I was looking for beauty: I didn't exactly care about art, I simply wanted not to be bored and to experience grace. So I thought I would write. One morning, Hazel Brown wakes up in a badly decorated hotel room to find that she has written the complete works of Charles Baudelaire. In her bewilderment, the hotel becomes every cheap room she ever stayed in during her youthful perambulations in 1980s Paris. This is the legend of a she-dandy's life. Woven into the reminiscences of Hazel's early life are episodes from Baudelaire's youth, as well as reflections on the history of tailoring, the passion of reading, and 19th-century painting. Lisa Robertson's debut novel is an exploration of life lived in pursuit of beauty, and a celebration of the mind of a girl.

Weight: 162g
Dimension: 128 x 262 x 15 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781913512354