Deer

Dashiel Carrera

Description

• Serial rights targeting Paris Review, n+1, BOMB
• Print and digital publicity targeting NPR, The Atlantic, Bookforum, Los Angeles Times, New York Review of Books, London Review of Books, New York Times, Washington Post, The Nation, Full Stop, Tupelo Quarterly, Kenyon Review
• Regional tour targeting independent bookstores
• Review copies sent targeting all major print and digital literary media outlets, reviewers, and booksellers; additional copies available upon request
• Promotion on publisher’s website and social media; promotion via e-newsletters to booksellers, reviewers

The Deer is a rhythmic, surrealist psychological thriller about a physicist who hits—what appears—to be a deer. As he returns from the scene of the accident to his childhood home, long-forgotten memories flood his consciousness, and he must come to terms with the fact that his past, and reality as he knows it, are not what they appear. Part experimental film, part jazz record, but always lyrical, luminous, and austere, The Deer is a poignant meditation on familial love, loss, and the mystery at the heart of existence.

Sujets

• Policier & Thriller
• Thriller
• Psychological
• Thrillers
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Deep Vellum Publishing
• Date de parution: 02 août 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781628974294
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Praise for The Deer
Haunted, haunting, Dashiel Carrera s The Deer splits its central story into spliced reels, images moving characters back in time through memory and magical realism. At the core of this brilliant experimental novel is the question of sentience. What do humans and animals feel; how does blood bind us; what does it mean to remember the past if the past changes with the future. Structurally innovative and emotionally intense, The Deer inhabits a strange and magical literary landscape.
-Carol Guess, author of Girl Zoo and
Sleep Tight Satellite
Disorienting but heartfelt, fragmentary but immersive, Dashiel Carrera s The Deer deftly melds the disorienting effects of existential crisis alongside the fever dreamscape of family memory into something like a new As I Lay Dying for the post-Disintegration Loops era.
-Blake Butler, author of Alice Knott
Haunting, magnetic, compulsively beautiful, The Deer shines a dark light into uncertain corridors of mind and memory, into the churn of narrative itself. This book leaves an indelible impression, and with it Carrera makes a stunning debut.
-Alexandra Kleeman, author of Something New Under the Sun
The Deer is luminous, sacred, mysterious—beautifully conceived, a first work of mesmerizing poignancy and power.
-Carole Maso, author of The Art Lover
Things collide and breath stops-but whose?-and the hinge squeaks open onto Dashiel Carrera s The Deer . Narrative and language are destabilized and wonderful, full of awe, woozy: let us inebriate and witness.
-Lily Hoang, author of Underneath and A Bestiary
It begins with a man who may or may not have hit a deer with his car. As the story unfolds, the lean prose of this haunting novel blurs echoes of a past with an ambiguous present to create a reality in the way that an arroyo remembers the rush of water that carved it. Atmospheric in the manner of Kafka, The Deer is a brilliant articulation of the unseen, of the depths that shape one ordinary life.
-Steve Tomasula, author of Ascension: A Novel

Copyright © 2022 by Dashiel Carrera
First edition, 2022
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022934799
ISBN: 978-1-628974-02-7 (paperback)
ISBN: 978-1-628974-29-4 (ebook)
www.dalkeyarchive.com
Dallas/Dublin
Printed on permanent/durable acid-free paper.

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Contents THE DEER - Side A Track 1 - LIGHTS Lights: I. The accident Lights: II. The man in the long grey suit Lights: III. Our house Lights: IV. Breakfast Lights: V. Beats Lights: VI. Tempo Track 2 - SHADOWS Shadows: I. The fawn Shadows: II. Our dog Shadows: III. The funeral Shadows: IV. Finny’s tower Shadows: V. Walkie-talkies Track 3 - EYES Eyes: I. The body Eyes: II. The dark Eyes III: The fire Eyes IV: Traces Eyes: V. Convergence Track 4 - THE DEER Hidden Track THE DEER - Side B Lesson 1 - DECOHERENCE Lesson 2 - WAVE COLLAPSE Lesson 3 - BLACK HOLE Lesson 4 - SINGULARITY
THE DEER
Side A

Track 1
LIGHTS

Lights: I. The accident
There were no deer. This I mutter under my breath. Here the frogs pushed slow, cascading bubbles through their throats, the tall, wet grass bowed before the black river, splintered rungs wound the peeling trunk of an old oak. There were no deer. A deer was something you saw in your backyard through red binoculars, nibbling away the berries meant for your mother s birthday. Not here, by pavement and guardrails, red flashing lights, and puddles of gasoline.
The men trade coffees and laugh. Their black boots splash. The man in front of me with the notepad smiles expectantly. Did I see it coming? I saw the road and the tall grass bending and I pulled in my shoulders. In between the blades a house with glowing windows where a silhouette pulled a tooth from its mouth. Someone left their red mitten behind. Arthur? My eyes softened in the dark. They rolled smoothly and I shook my head to try and push them into the cold night air. I wiped snot from my nose and rubbed it on the bottom of my winter coat. I tried to zip my coat tighter but my hands were too small. They fumbled. The moon was so bright and I remembered my mother saying something once about the moon in the sky pointing east or never east and I kept looking at the moon in hopes my eyes would expand in the light and I d stay awake but they d only soften and I d imagine its gravity pulling me up, like an astronaut.
The man in the heavy coat s face is white. Was white. He offers me a coffee and I decline-I say I ve had enough and he writes something down. A man in orange is jumping out in front of pickups and flailing his arms.
Let s start simple, he says, pushing his peaked cap back with a pencil. OK, I say. What do you do? Physics, I say. Like a teacher? No, more like research. Research, he laughs. Like test tubes? Like Schrödinger, I say. Quantum. Fancy, he says. I m just coming from a conference, in fact. Did you have anything to drink? Sure, maybe a whiskey, I say, real smooth. What kind? I can t remember. There was only one bottle and the bartender had very thin fingers.
The man in the coat smiles. And how fast was I going? How fast was I going-if a deer runs and then hits the car-if a deer-suppose there were a deer-it would be dead before I saw it, anyway, if I gripped the steering wheel tight enough-if I gripped the steering wheel and turned out of the curve, away from the deer-meaning the wheel shifts and the car light suddenly shines away. But by then the deer would be bouncing off the car-
The man with the pencil furrows his brow. Another man taps him on the shoulder and they walk toward the center of the flashing lights. I lean back and swing my feet out over the edge of the road, gravel pinning my head. At the top of the wooded hill a little girl pops her head out a window. I follow her gaze to an old oak where the red lights flash. The leaves hang limply like a swarm of sleeping bats, noses sharpening to the curve of the rain. I call to her. The light goes off.

Was I driving too fast? The dotted line down the center of the road blurred. Each droplet on the window nudged the other out of place. The car trembled; the road slurred; my eyes buzzed; my breath pulled.
Remember when Mother used to show us how to catch water from an icicle and slurp it up, Arthur? And I d try and slurp yours up and you d splash it in my face. Focus, I d think, and the water fell slower. I slurped and it tasted like iron so I pushed it to the back of my throat and it bubbled and I felt cold and my temples stung. Where did she go? My hands are sticky and red. I turn. The red trail pushes back, back onto the road mixing with the swirling rainwater and the crunch of the boots of the policemen and the now stamping hoofs of a little baby deer, held by the nape in the arms of a man in orange, the glint of a knife withdrawing, one black eye directly on me.

Lights: II. The man in the long grey suit
Is he still throwing up?
He wasn t throwing up, says the second man. I think it was gagging, like a gag reflex, you know?
My open mouth shakes. Vomit strand spins. Shadows collapse.
Hey buddy buddy?
He s not answering.
Well, we gotta take him home, don t we?
Eyes fluttered. Breath pulled.
Who s supposed to take him?
A laugh. Well, I can t take him. He ll throw up all over the back seat of the cruiser.
Between my lips: a bubble, breaking.
Well, I sure as hell can t take him. I can t even lift him.
Should we get a gurney?
No gurney.
Silence. The weight of blood in my head. The patter of rain.
The first man s voice shakes. I m not sure we can do it without a gurney, sir. He s barely conscious.
He ll walk. Grab an arm.
A flash of grey.
Hurry up. An arm each.
Nails in my armpits. Sweaty palms on my shoulders. Pulled and tangled and hung like a puppet.
Hold him here where I can see him.
My head falls back. My eyes fall open. The man in the long grey suit pats my cheek and sighs.
That s him.

Lights: III. Our house
My brother Arthur waves to the officers as they drift down the street, calling thank you. I look down. He steps forward and holds me, rocking, hand on the back of my neck.
They just called-something about a deer? No, I say. They told me it was a deer, he says. I know, I say, but it was dark. So no deer? No deer, I say, just weak headlights and a long country road. OK, he says. There are a lot of deer on that road. OK, I say. I m very tired.
Have a drink.
He hands me a glass of cold brandy. The ice cubes slip down my throat. He smiles and sits on the couch. Falling, falling. What was that Beatles song Finny used to sing? Fallin , yes I am fallin . A breathless crack on each note. A spinning strand of blonde hair. And she keeps calling, me back again.
Everything is where it used to be. The sagging couch. The spot where Father spilled brandy. Has it grown? Arthur flicks on the light. The picture frames are covered in dust. There are no pictures.
Arthur blows a piece of dust off the record needle and the speakers flutter. As he stands his neck passes through the light. A small scar.
Do you remember this record?
I close my eyes. Yes. Father used to play it in the living room. The ice cubes clinked in his scotch, melody floating on his breath. His boots crinkling as Finny s blonde hair curled over my mouth and she rocked me, whispering, don t be afraid. Yes, I thought swaying. I remember.
Are you OK? Arthur furrows his brow.
I look down. My hand shakes. Shook. I m just tired.
He swirls brandy beneath his nose and rocks his shoulders to the beat. My head rolls to the side and I close my eyes.
Father at the piano. Searching for what we lost.
I m so tired. Arthur tells me, nodding, you must have had too much to drink. You need to go lie down. He takes me under his arm and smiles. I lean into him, body bending to the curve of his shoulder.
You ll be sleeping in your old room, with the glow-in-the-dark stars. Remember when we put them up? Arthur has a big smile. Yes, I say sway