sewn paper
e-mail the Author
Fiction/Humorous
September 2001
136 pages
ISBN 0-88984-228-0
$18.95
Dr. Swarthmore
Alexander Scala
Dr. Swarthmore, bearded and grave, was a clergyman posted to rural Indiana.
Late in the year 1900 he published a pamphlet
in which he described the Second Coming and the end of the world.
Blount, an uncanny youth with a divine gift for salesmanship,
proposes a scheme for promoting the pamphlet, selling it by the thousands,
and making a lot of money. A new century is at hand; fear of
the future, Blount reasons, will render Indiana
susceptible to the exalted and prophetic flavour of the pamphlet.
Dr. Swarthmore, dazzled in spite of himself, falls in with this questionable marketing plan. At the
critical moment, however, public opinion
sways to science rather than religion; Dr. Swarthmore is undone.
This book does not have a serious bone in its body. Its plot is
absurd. Its characters are cartoons. Among many other things, it is a satire on
capitalist enterprise in general and the publishing industry in particular.
`If for nothing else, Alexander Scala's short novel Dr. Swarthmore
must be praised for its cheek - a 130-page disquisition on faith, science and
commerce set at the turn of the 19th century. As every genuine piece of literature
is always being characterized more by its form than its content, Dr. Swarthmore
is all the more pleasantly peculiar by McCanLit's rigidly naturalistic standards
by virtue of its carton realism and playful sense of smart humour.' - Ray Robertson, Toronto Star
`Assuredly the first novel of the new millennium in which
the Second Person of the Trinity has a walk-on part in a cheap suit.' - Jason F.X. Demolay, Iron Rain Review
`It's rural Indiana in the year 1900, and the laughs come thick and
fast as Dr. Swarthmore, a clergyman with a cigar fetish, attempts to sell
doomsday to his fellow Hoosiers at fifty cents per doom.' - Lompoc Courier and Thunderbolt
Dr. Swarthmore is arresting, Blount is ineffable, and Dr. Beecham is
debonair, but the stomach pump steals the show. - Willoughby Strongapple, Euphorbia: A Magazine of the Arts.
`It's rural Indiana in the year 1900, and Dr. Swarthmore, a clergyman, attempts
to sell doomsday to his fellow Hoosiers at 50 cents per doom. A first novel from Kingston, Ontario,
resident Alexander Scala, Dr. Swarthmore
is a coal-black diamond of a book - deliciously
satiric, studded with masterly turns of phrase and meaning, striking images and spectral revelations.' -
Jim Bartley, Globe and Mail
