Landscape with the Fall of Icarus

Book excerpt: Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, by Zsolt Alapi, tells the story of an immigrant who has left the United States during the Vietnam War and who tries to find a home in Montreal, which for him is initially an alien culture. Subtly linked as a first-person narrative that travels between the present and the past, the book also explores the narrator?s psyche as he attempts to find meaning in his passion for art and literature. Rare is the Canadian work of fiction that explores so in- depth the relationship of literature to the psychological, sexual, and personal makeup of an individual while considering at the same time the complexity of exile, both physical and spiritual.