Oh There You Are I Can’t See You Is It Raining?

An experiment in hybrid and versatility of voice, these texts stutter around the slipperiness of language and the transience of desire. The first section is an exercise in paradox wherein language as medium breaks free of signification and desire, knowing very well that language is inextricable from desire. The second section concedes that language may be inescapable yet its borders and meanings must and can be moveable, so that through the decomposition of what has been said or written the new may sustain itself on the dregs of the past. The third section is a burlesque reflection on the kaleidoscopic incarnations of Eros as it passes through assorted personalities and neuroses, that is, a chorus of anonymous men, all in various states of confusion about love. Each man is but a different face on the ten-thousand-sided-dice of the same drive wherein gender stereotypes are inflated to show their contours, exposing romantic desire as it is: essential, absurd, random, hideous, and blind.

Laura Broadbent was raised in Stratford, Ontario and has lived in Montreal since 2005. This is her first book.

“There is something about the sharpness of Broadbent’s lines that really appeal.” — rob mclennan

“Broadbent’s writing does indeed come across as an experiment bent on breaking down proverbial gender stereotypes and giving new meaning to relationships.” — The Toronto Quarterly