Lives of the Mind Slaves

sewn paper
Fiction / Stories
1994
192 pages
ISBN 0-88984-139-X
$14.95

Search by Title

Search by Author

News & Events

Alumni

To order

Order Direct

Lives of the Mind Slaves

Matt Cohen

Matt Cohen's stories have been widely anthologized and have appeared in distinguished periodicals and journals in Canada, Britain and the United States. Lives of the Mind Slaves features 7 short stories - one of which (`Trotsky's First Confessions') was written especially for this book - and a brilliant novella.

Cohen's novella, `Golden Whore of the Heartland', explores the conflict between the spontaneity of passion - a chance affair - and the comfort of commitment and belonging. `The Sins of Tomas Benares' explores the theme of love over generations. `Café Le Dog' is a celebration of all that remains inexplicable in the attractions between men and women. `Racial Memories' is vintage Cohen - a story about a not-so-classic Jewish family.

Lives of the Mind Slaves contains the best of Cohen's two previous short story collections, Café Le Dog and Living on Water.

`Most of the stories in this fine collection come from two previous Cohen collections, with the addition of one new story. The pleasure of reading this handsome volume from the Porcupine's Quill, with its lush cream paper and clear bold type reminds us that some of the most intense literary experiences come in re-experiencing good writing, beautifully presented. ... Lives of the Mind Slaves, at its best, captures in subtle and moving prose the feeling of twilight that seems the right tone for the end of the millennium.'
- Montreal Gazette

`For the past two decades Matt Cohen has been one of Canada's premier writers of fiction, with an impressive list of critically acclaimed and award-winning novels and stories. Lives of the Mind Slaves - composed of eight stories and a novella, all but one of which were previously published - is an excellent sampler of his literary sophistication and craftsmanship. This obviously carefully selected collection, emphasizing the author's conventional rather than experimental production, exhibits the finely tuned and engaging intelligence we have come to expect in Cohen's fiction, an intelligence that relentlessly probes and exposes the depths of an urbanized, cosmopolitan, transcultural, and permanently uprooted individual who perceives the mind as his last refuge from life's randomness, instability, and impermanence.'
- World Literature Today

Matt Cohen was born in Kingston, Ontario in 1942. He received his B.A. and M.A. from the University of Toronto. In the late 1960s he taught political economy at McMaster University before becoming a full-time writer. Since 1969 he has published twenty books, including novels, short stories, poetry and two books for children.

He has received critical acclaim for many of his books, notably `The Salem Novels' - The Disinherited (1974), The Colours of War (1977), The Sweet Second Summer of Kitty Malone (1979), Flowers of Darkness (1981), and Emotional Arithmetic (1990). He was short-listed for the Governor General's Award in 1979 for The Sweet Second Summer of Kitty Malone and was a finalist for the 1988 Ontario Trillium Award for his short story collection Living on Water. As well, his short stories have twice won National Magazine Awards, and his books have been translated into Dutch, French and Portuguese. His latest novel The Bookseller was published by Knopf Canada in 1993.

Contents © 2003 The Porcupine's Quill, Inc. - Updated: 13 September 2003 by Tim Inkster
The Porcupine's Quill, 68 Main Street, Erin, Ontario CANADA N0B 1T0
Telephone (519) 833-9158 Fax (519) 833-9845 e-mail pql@sentex.net

The Porcupine's Quill is remarkable in Canadian publishing in that most of the physical production
of our books is completed in-house at the shop on the Main Street of Erin Village.

We print on a twenty-five inch Heidelberg KORD, typically onto acid-free Zephyr Antique laid.
The sheets are then folded, and sewn into signatures on a 1907 model Smyth National Book Sewing machine.