One of the most inventive and affecting reimaginings of the hero’s journey in recent fiction ... The book reads quickly, but not lightly; its brevity belies the density of ideas packed into each section ... Evokes the grandeur of Greek and Roman epics ... Strange and funny and unsettling, pulsing with both hope and dread.
Brilliant ... Vivid ... In choosing the title for Canon, Lewis is both nodding to the Western texts that serve as the novel’s foundation, and offering an audacious mission statement: that something original can indeed be made from used parts. It can also be funny, chaotic, warm, and impossible to put down.
Unfolding in short chapters and divided into multiple books, the story is told by a humorous, omniscient narrator who often addresses the reader directly. Turning the hero’s quest on its head, Lewis’ unique story features intriguing characters and a worthy examination of purpose and heroism.
Highly meta ... Lewis is in line with the postmodern satirists of the 1960s and ’70s—John Barth, Robert Coover, William H. Gass—but with a new sensitivity about gender and sexuality, and a wit sharpened by the social media age. Lewis is questioning narrative, but their story is all cool assurance ... A brash, informed, and funny anti-epic.
