The Last Days of the Lacuna Cabal by Sean Dixon is a mischievous rites of passage tale that takes place just as the Iraq war is exploding.

The misfits and oddballs that make up the members of the Lacuna Cabal Montreal Young Women's Book Club pride themselves on their good taste, intelligent discussions, and impeccable opinions. But what makes them different from other clubs is that they actually enact the books they are reading -- until one of the books starts enacting their lives, so to speak.

And this book is The Epic of Gilgamesh -- one of the earliest known works of literary fiction. As we know from the start, this epic poem begins "as an adventure story about a hero and his friend, but then somebody dies and everything changes and the hero goes on a long journey, in search of wisdom and the secret of eternal life." Life imitates art, and our cast of characters set out on their own parallel journey to break their archetypes, discover their identities and places in the world, and grapple with the uncertainty of their futures.

Author:
Sean Dixon is a writer, occasional essayist, stage actor, and banjoist. His work has been published in The Globe and Mail, This Magazine, Canadian Theatre Review and Brick, A Literary Journal. He gave up jobs as a shipper-received, a poster boy (of the putting up on billboards variety), and a prison driver to become a writer. He lives and plays banjo in Toronto and is currently working on his next novel.

My review:
When I was approached about this blog tour, after reading the description I thought perhaps I would be reading a type of "chick lit" and that I'd like it. However, after only a couple of chapters in, I realized that it wasn't up my alley.

The book is written as a narrative from the point of two different members of the book club, with footnotes adding details throughout. While the footnotes are there to add clarification and humor to the tale, I found them distracting and confusing for the most part.

The plot of the story itself bears interest (a parallel journey of the characters similar to the ancient work of literary fiction they are reading), but for me the delivery of it just didn't fit with what I usually read or like to read for that matter. Partially because I found it difficult to follow and also because of content that I am not personally comfortable reading about. There is an audience for this book, it's just not me, it might be you.

Along with the posting of the blog tour there was to be a Q & A with the author Sean Dixon. I may have sent my questions in too late since as I am writing this post to publish, I haven't received the Q's to my A's. When they are received I shall be sure to add them to this post.

Please read **About Reviews at the bottom of the page. I received a complimentary copy of The Last Days of the Lacuna Cabal for posting about this blog tour and to read prior to writing my review.