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Liminal
At 11:04 a.m. on January 21st, 2017, Jordan opens the door to his mother’s bedroom. As his eyes adjust to the half-light, he finds her lying in bed, eyes closed and mouth agape. In that instant he cannot tell whether she is asleep or dead. The sight of his mother's body, caught between these two possibilities, causes Jordan to plunge headlong into the uncertain depths of consciousness itself.
From androids to cannibals to sex clubs, an unforgettable personal odyssey emerges, populated by a cast of sublime outsiders in search for the ever-elusive nature of self. Part ontological thriller, part millennial saga, Liminal is a riotous and moving portrait of a young man in volatile times, a generation caught in suspended animation, and a son’s enduring love for his mother.
From androids to cannibals to sex clubs, an unforgettable personal odyssey emerges, populated by a cast of sublime outsiders in search for the ever-elusive nature of self. Part ontological thriller, part millennial saga, Liminal is a riotous and moving portrait of a young man in volatile times, a generation caught in suspended animation, and a son’s enduring love for his mother.
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 23, 2018
20 people are currently reading
693 people want to read
About the author
Jordan Tannahill
26 books125 followersJordan Tannahill is a Canadian novelist and playwright based in London.
His debut novel, Liminal, won France's 2021 Prix des Jeunes Libraires. His second novel, The Listeners, was a Canadian bestseller, and was shortlisted for the 2021 Giller Prize.
Tannahill is the author of several plays, and the book of essays, Theatre of the Unimpressed.
In 2019, CBC Arts named Tannahill as one of sixty-nine LGBTQ Canadians, living or deceased, who has shaped the country's history.
His debut novel, Liminal, won France's 2021 Prix des Jeunes Libraires. His second novel, The Listeners, was a Canadian bestseller, and was shortlisted for the 2021 Giller Prize.
Tannahill is the author of several plays, and the book of essays, Theatre of the Unimpressed.
In 2019, CBC Arts named Tannahill as one of sixty-nine LGBTQ Canadians, living or deceased, who has shaped the country's history.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 50 reviews
February 14, 2018
As your body comes into focus, you are suddenly every effigy I have ever seen. Every icon, statue, scarecrow, mummy, rock cairn, fetish, mannequin, every vessel of sacrifice, every voodoo doll riven through with pins. The papier-mâché George Bush I watched set alight at the protest. The flaming Guy Fawkes figurines set alight on the fifth of November. The burning Judas hanging from trees across Mexico at Easter. Less than people but more than objects. Abject things caught somewhere in between.
I am standing in the doorway and can see, three steps away in bed, an object symbolizing a body, a body symbolizing a person, a person symbolizing my mother.
But here, at last, there is meaning.
Here in this moment your body seems to contain every meaning. Contain the world. Contain me.
Liminal opens with an expository monologue: When the thirtyish Jordan went to check on his mother – who hasn't been well lately and who never sleeps in – he finds her laying in her bed so still that she is either fast asleep or dead. The entire book takes place in the few minutes that it takes for Jordan to decide to take the three steps forward and confirm his mother's status one way or the other, and in those minutes, he contemplates his life as the only child of this single mother, all while rehashing the philosophical question that has nagged him for years: what is it that separates a person from her body; what is the boundary between subject and object? Liminal reads like a memoir – and as the main character has the same name as the author, and has had some of the same verifiable experiences (author Jordan Tannahill and a former partner named Will did run an artspace called Videofag in Toronto for years; some other basic facts are easy to disprove) – the book has the “liminal” feel that its title suggests; hovering somewhere between memoir and fiction. This novelised memoir format makes Jordan's recounting of the philosophy books he's read feel organic to the story, and the whole comes off as a deep meditation on what his generation has lived through; where their activism has come from. I liked this very much.
And it's of course considered obscene, to transcend our bodies – whether through sex, drugs, or a suicide belt. For the self to consciously cleave itself apart from the body. There's a horror in having agency in the act. It destabilizes that which is thought to be fixed: that only God or the universe or fate can unfix these two parts of our being. That sacred union. Our body, the temple. And in that moment I understood “sacred” as belonging to a language of limits, a word which demarcated boundaries we were not prepared to cross for fear of destabilizing the accepted order, for fear of realizing how far our bodies could actually stretch, transform, how much pleasure they could hold, how extreme they could be made, how fluid and porous they really were, because to realize those potentials might have meant remaking all the containers – physical, social, political – that held the world in place.
Most of us would define “liminal” as an intermediate state or condition (as per Dictionary.com), and on the surface, the uncertain state of Jordan's mother would seem the point of this book's title. Because she was a computer engineer working on AI, there's a naturalness to Jordan remembering his mother explaining Schrödinger's Cat to him as a boy; to their discussions of the Singularity; to Jordan becoming a playwright fascinated by the use of cyborg actors. And because Jordan was deeply affected by images of 9/11 as a preteen, and especially video of people jumping from the Towers, he was early fascinated by the use of “people jumping” but “bodies falling” to describe the newsreel footage; at what point did those people become their bodies? This led to a naturalness in Jordan recalling the writings of Saint Augustine and Saint Teresa of Ávila (who were both fixated on the separation of the vile body from the pure spirit that is our true selves), and also the writings of Julia Kristeva (whose writing on “abjection” – the horror of discovering the separation between “self” and “other” – was totally fascinating to me). So while all of this up-front examination of liminal states is going on in Jordan's mind, the bigger picture has to do with the original anthropological definition of liminal, which is: The quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of rituals, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the ritual is complete. And what could be more disorienting than feeling like a man-child and not knowing if your only parent has died, thrusting you, unprepared, into adulthood? It's this secondary meaning that made the whole feel elevated to me.
After describing throughout the book a life of shiftlessness and partying and not quite knowing what to do with his life yet, it is now late 2016 and Jordan's longtime friend explains how bizarre it was to have turned thirteen the year the Twin Towers came down, and now to be on the cusp of thirty and watching the election of Donald Trump:
Act one, scene one: cataclysm. Scene two: war of attrition, followed by the age of terror, the Great Recession, and then a false ending, the presumed conclusion, the first Black president, the dawn of a new Pax Americana. But our story was not a Disney film. It turned out it was just the latest installment in a tawdry, serialized drugstore thriller with embossed bold letters on the front cover. An installment which leaves off with a totally implausible cliffhanger.
Ana continues that Millenials find themselves waiting at the side of the road for the Boomers to hand the keys over, but it would seem that the older generation was “intent on driving the world into the ground before they do”. I don't use the term “Millenials” to dismissively group together those who came after me, but since Tannahill does use it, I'll take it that there are some who have lived through this dispiriting three act play in just this way; he may not be the voice of his generation, but he's obviously the voice of some, and it was an interesting perspective to me.
From a road trip to Burning Man, to an orgiastic Vatican-owned bathhouse in Rome, to a pub in London as the Brexit results are televised, Liminal is not just a book of ideas but also of character, plot, and setting. I loved that I didn't know what parts were autobiographical and which were fictional, and all of the philosophising felt natural to the story. Big picture, little picture; it all worked for me.
January 31, 2018
A masturbatory pseudo-autobiography. Jordan Tannahill uses his mother as an avenue for a disjointed non-narrative. I'm not sure why this was published at the stage it was. There are ideas in here that are saplings for more interesting, deeper pieces of fiction, but for some reason Tannahill thought it necessary to write a... what do I even call it? Memoir? Fiction? Book of essays? Liminal is a slog of sugary language that we wish was about a man and his mom - but is really completely, utterly centred around himself. The back of the book claims that the story within is about "...a son's enduring love for his mother." This couldn't be farther from the essence of the novel, unfortunately.
January 21, 2018
Dunno what happened here. His plays are so great. This is 300 pages of annoying, pretentious hand-wringing. All the basics of fiction are abandoned here -- no play with language, no startling insights, no narrative -- which can work, but this...maybe he was going for a millennial Proust thing, but it was like being stuck in an elevator with a grad student who's had too much coffee. Where was the editor on this one? This read like a first draft years away from completion. So disappointing. I blame the editor and whoever decided this was ready for publication.
May 28, 2022
Je ne sais jamais quoi dire quand on me demande mon type de romans parce que mon dada, ce sont les romans chelous, dérangeants et s’ils parlent de mort, alors là c’est la cerise sur le gâteau. Bref, impossible de quitter la discussion sans avoir été cataloguée sociopathe - et c’est bien regrettable mais ce n’est pas le sujet du jour.
Comme j’ai -par dessus le marché- un sens du timing désastreux, aujourd’hui, à la veille de la fête des mères, je ne vais pas seulement vous parler d’un ouvrage qui parle de la mort mais… d’un ouvrage qui (se) raconte la mort d'une mère. C’est plus précisément Jordan Tannahill qui dissèque cette fraction de secondes où il comprend qu’elle est morte, cet entre-deux où son esprit appréhende la présence-absence de sa mère.
Et ce qui est merveilleux, c’est qu’il le fait en convoquant la philo, les maths et la physique quantique de façon tout à fait pédagogique : le chat de Schrödinger, le fonctionnement d’un champignon parasite, l’extase de sainte Thérèse d’Avila… Chaque chapitre digresse sur un sujet a priori sans aucun lien avant de revenir, dans une habile construction, à cet intervalle où tout s’est joué pour son double fictif, à cet état de découverte, par nature évanescent pour en expliciter les différentes strates. On n’est donc pas uniquement face à une autofiction sur le deuil et le rapport mère/fils (très touchant au passage), on est aussi face à une superbe réflexion sur notre rapport au corps et à la mort.
J'ajoute que ce n’est pas un roman qui vous fera déprimer mais au contraire savourer ce qu'il vous reste à vivre. Si les dernières pages m’ont arraché quelques larmes, c’est uniquement parce qu’elles m’ont rappelé un de mes livres doudous qui recense toutes les belles choses du quotidien qu’il faut savourer tant qu’elles sont encore là : Le sel de la vie de Françoise Héritier. Des bonnes larmes donc. Et un immense coup de coeur à l'arrivée. Foncez !
Comme j’ai -par dessus le marché- un sens du timing désastreux, aujourd’hui, à la veille de la fête des mères, je ne vais pas seulement vous parler d’un ouvrage qui parle de la mort mais… d’un ouvrage qui (se) raconte la mort d'une mère. C’est plus précisément Jordan Tannahill qui dissèque cette fraction de secondes où il comprend qu’elle est morte, cet entre-deux où son esprit appréhende la présence-absence de sa mère.
Et ce qui est merveilleux, c’est qu’il le fait en convoquant la philo, les maths et la physique quantique de façon tout à fait pédagogique : le chat de Schrödinger, le fonctionnement d’un champignon parasite, l’extase de sainte Thérèse d’Avila… Chaque chapitre digresse sur un sujet a priori sans aucun lien avant de revenir, dans une habile construction, à cet intervalle où tout s’est joué pour son double fictif, à cet état de découverte, par nature évanescent pour en expliciter les différentes strates. On n’est donc pas uniquement face à une autofiction sur le deuil et le rapport mère/fils (très touchant au passage), on est aussi face à une superbe réflexion sur notre rapport au corps et à la mort.
J'ajoute que ce n’est pas un roman qui vous fera déprimer mais au contraire savourer ce qu'il vous reste à vivre. Si les dernières pages m’ont arraché quelques larmes, c’est uniquement parce qu’elles m’ont rappelé un de mes livres doudous qui recense toutes les belles choses du quotidien qu’il faut savourer tant qu’elles sont encore là : Le sel de la vie de Françoise Héritier. Des bonnes larmes donc. Et un immense coup de coeur à l'arrivée. Foncez !
April 30, 2018
The entire novel takes place within a single second as its protagonist, Jordan, beholds his mother's unconscious body in bed. It operates in the world of autofiction and reminded me a bit of Sheila Heti's or Ben Lerner's work. Part novel, part memoir, part philosophical treatise on the nature of consciousness. Would highly recommend, though could see how it wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea.
August 30, 2020
I think best said in the words of Drake in “Furthest Thing”: “somewhere between psychotic and iconic / somewhere between I want it and I got it / somewhere between I’m sober and I’m lifted / somewhere between a mistress and committed”.
March 25, 2021
Que j'ai adoré ce livre! Ça faisait quelques livres que je lisais en m'en sentant détaché, loin. Avec parfois même l'impression de perdre mon cas. Mais Jordan Tannahill a changé la donne.
Le gars entre dans la chambre de sa mère. Il ne sait pas si elle est morte ou si elle dort. Schrödinger et tout ça.
Il réussira à nous parler de sa vie, de celle de sa mère, de Sainte Thérèse d'Avila, de transidentité et d'un paquet d'autres choses. Tout en restant sur le sujet principal.
C'est spontané, viscéral, sincère. Assez peu "travaillé", au sens où l'auteur ne cherche pas à "faire beau". Tellement convaincant que même si je suis intolérant par rapport à toute l'autofiction qui s'écrit depuis plusieurs années, je le recommande chaudement.
Le gars entre dans la chambre de sa mère. Il ne sait pas si elle est morte ou si elle dort. Schrödinger et tout ça.
Il réussira à nous parler de sa vie, de celle de sa mère, de Sainte Thérèse d'Avila, de transidentité et d'un paquet d'autres choses. Tout en restant sur le sujet principal.
C'est spontané, viscéral, sincère. Assez peu "travaillé", au sens où l'auteur ne cherche pas à "faire beau". Tellement convaincant que même si je suis intolérant par rapport à toute l'autofiction qui s'écrit depuis plusieurs années, je le recommande chaudement.
October 7, 2019
La seule question que je ne me pose pas avec Liminal, c'est si j'ai aimé. OUI. Pour le reste... Comment parler d'un livre pareil? Annoncé comme un roman, c'est aussi partiellement la vie de son auteur, Jordan Tanahill, jeune prodige du théâtre canadien, qui signe ici son premier roman. Et quel roman!
Lorsque Jordan entre dans la chambre de sa mère ce matin-là, il sent que quelque chose ne va pas. Elle devrait déjà être levée. Mais elle ne peut pas être pas morte, pas comme ça, si?
Commence alors, à l'aide de la métaphore du chat de Schrodinger (dont sa mère a parlé à Jordan quand il avait dix ans) une réflexion poussée sur le corps, la personne, l'humain, la présence, notre être, les autres... Jordan regarde sa mère qui existe entre deux états, plus vraiment sa mère, mais pas encore un objet inanimé comme la table de chevet et revient en détail sur ses souvenirs de garçon, d'adolescent et de jeune homme. Le théâtre, la découverte de la sexualité, son amie Ana, les voyages, Will et le Videofag... C'est cru sans être obsessivement vulgaire, c'est vivant, c'est incroyablement écrit (d'ailleurs bravo à la traduction pour la quasi absence de mots anglophones, à l'exception de "fucking" évidemment). C'est un roman sur la vie d'un millennial, et c'est sans doute pour cela que je me suis autant retrouvée dedans. Les espoirs, les doutes, les échecs, les références culturelles, tout m'a parlé.
Lisez-le!!
Lorsque Jordan entre dans la chambre de sa mère ce matin-là, il sent que quelque chose ne va pas. Elle devrait déjà être levée. Mais elle ne peut pas être pas morte, pas comme ça, si?
Commence alors, à l'aide de la métaphore du chat de Schrodinger (dont sa mère a parlé à Jordan quand il avait dix ans) une réflexion poussée sur le corps, la personne, l'humain, la présence, notre être, les autres... Jordan regarde sa mère qui existe entre deux états, plus vraiment sa mère, mais pas encore un objet inanimé comme la table de chevet et revient en détail sur ses souvenirs de garçon, d'adolescent et de jeune homme. Le théâtre, la découverte de la sexualité, son amie Ana, les voyages, Will et le Videofag... C'est cru sans être obsessivement vulgaire, c'est vivant, c'est incroyablement écrit (d'ailleurs bravo à la traduction pour la quasi absence de mots anglophones, à l'exception de "fucking" évidemment). C'est un roman sur la vie d'un millennial, et c'est sans doute pour cela que je me suis autant retrouvée dedans. Les espoirs, les doutes, les échecs, les références culturelles, tout m'a parlé.
Lisez-le!!
October 9, 2021
He's smart. He's well read. He thinks about the essence of being and about the edges between life and death and between different states of existence. He and his mother love each other deeply, though sometimes their relationship is more than a little rocky. And, oh yes, he's gay, and he lets that dominate the book in the same kind of obsessive way that Philip Roth's books are dominated by his Judaism.
Jordan Tannahill and his book are hugely self indulgent. Most of his life is a babyish, narcissisitic, hedonistic act of masturbation. It makes the book sometimes a little painful to read, but it felt like an authentic self portrait, so that allowed me to accept it. Mr. Tannahill certainly intends a parallel between his own autobiographical novel and St. Augustine's Confession which he cites extensively. After all, their mothers are both named Monica. At the end he finds love and there is a suggestion that he is developing some talent and finding a way in life, but it's only a suggestion. He remains to the end a guy who could find greatness or could as easily go off a cliff. He lives in the liminal space between an accomplished and meaninful life and oblivion.
Jordan Tannahill and his book are hugely self indulgent. Most of his life is a babyish, narcissisitic, hedonistic act of masturbation. It makes the book sometimes a little painful to read, but it felt like an authentic self portrait, so that allowed me to accept it. Mr. Tannahill certainly intends a parallel between his own autobiographical novel and St. Augustine's Confession which he cites extensively. After all, their mothers are both named Monica. At the end he finds love and there is a suggestion that he is developing some talent and finding a way in life, but it's only a suggestion. He remains to the end a guy who could find greatness or could as easily go off a cliff. He lives in the liminal space between an accomplished and meaninful life and oblivion.
September 24, 2023
3.5
This was a book with exquisite writing and ideas but it lacked structure. This book sent me into an existential panic but in a good way... It somehow encapsulated all of my deepest fears in eloquent prose. Not sure if I was ready for that LOL. Some really dark ideas with just enough hope to make it bearable. I really enjoyed the meditations on consciousness and I loved the uncanny valley android Emiy. The book sometimes diverged into a few tangents that I didn't find particularly interesting. Overall I enjoyed this and there are definitely a lot of interesting takeaways, but it's not for the faint of heart. Be prepared to read pages of meandering ideas with no clear direction... it's worth it in the end.
This was a book with exquisite writing and ideas but it lacked structure. This book sent me into an existential panic but in a good way... It somehow encapsulated all of my deepest fears in eloquent prose. Not sure if I was ready for that LOL. Some really dark ideas with just enough hope to make it bearable. I really enjoyed the meditations on consciousness and I loved the uncanny valley android Emiy. The book sometimes diverged into a few tangents that I didn't find particularly interesting. Overall I enjoyed this and there are definitely a lot of interesting takeaways, but it's not for the faint of heart. Be prepared to read pages of meandering ideas with no clear direction... it's worth it in the end.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 5, 2018
To be honest I thought this might be too self involved and millennial for me as he uses his own life as a basis for the novel. I thought it was brilliant. his voice is so strong and the structure of the book so interesting that I forgot to question how much of the story is “real” and how much is “fiction”.
June 7, 2025
Un vrai voyage dans les pensées, les théories Philosophiques et scientifiques, les souvenirs, les regrets, les craintes et l'amour
March 25, 2018
Very entertaining and emotionally charged, part biography part philosophical journey. One of my favorite works so far by Jordan.
August 3, 2020
things that make me cry: listing mundane things that exist on earth while i’m thinking about death. just a running theme i’ve noticed.
so yeah the ending fucked me up bad in a good way. i regret rushing through this one and have a strong urge to get a copy i can highlight in cause i know there’s so much in here, especially about art and mortality, that super fascinated me.
i love a memoir with a broader theme! especially when like. this person is probably not old enough to be writing a memoir memoir but certainly has lived and made enough to have very clever ways of looking at their experiences and making them into a story. i really admire tannahill and have loved everything of his ive seem/read and am so happy to have this book as perspective on the next thing i see/read! (take me back, let me watch declarations again after reading this cause wow there’s gotta be so much there)
edit: knew this wasnt a full five stars but forgot to put why in the whiplash of how good the ending was. while the focus on the schrodinger's-mom effect of the moment that this book takes place in is really interesting, and valuable to remind the reader of, i think it wasn't phrased/approached in enough of a variety of ways to not feel redundant after a while.
so yeah the ending fucked me up bad in a good way. i regret rushing through this one and have a strong urge to get a copy i can highlight in cause i know there’s so much in here, especially about art and mortality, that super fascinated me.
i love a memoir with a broader theme! especially when like. this person is probably not old enough to be writing a memoir memoir but certainly has lived and made enough to have very clever ways of looking at their experiences and making them into a story. i really admire tannahill and have loved everything of his ive seem/read and am so happy to have this book as perspective on the next thing i see/read! (take me back, let me watch declarations again after reading this cause wow there’s gotta be so much there)
edit: knew this wasnt a full five stars but forgot to put why in the whiplash of how good the ending was. while the focus on the schrodinger's-mom effect of the moment that this book takes place in is really interesting, and valuable to remind the reader of, i think it wasn't phrased/approached in enough of a variety of ways to not feel redundant after a while.
February 6, 2018
A beautiful blurring of lines between a contemplative philosophical essay, and a heightened autobiography, all in the moment our breath gets caught, or the lump emerges in our throat, when our mind clears.
May 8, 2018
The most beautiful and thoughtful book I've read so far this year
June 7, 2019
It's a lot, but I loved it!
June 8, 2021
This is a book that gets better as it goes.
At first the narrator comes off as a bit naval-gazey in his endless obsession with the relationship between life and death and the uncanny (liminal) space between. But there's more to it than that.
The book starts with the narrator discovering his mother dead in her room and transforms into an autobiography. Some parts made me roll my eyes, others were amusing. Again, the strength of the book seemed to have come later (or at least, maybe it took me that long to get "into" the book?) and as the narrator grew older.
The narrator brushes with politics a little bit. Throughout most of the book it came off as, well, not shallow but not particularly deep either, and it gave me more of a liberal impression. The ending was stronger though, pulling from more contemporary events like the 2016 election of Trump and the UK voting to leave the European Union, and connects the resurgence of fascism with the Lacanian death drive. Which is by no means a new analysis, but certainly an accurate one (Marxist theorists view capitalism itself as a death drive, and fascism is capitalism in crisis).
Being fairly familiar with a lot of Marxist writings (as well as Lacanian concepts) I was able to bring a wider context to this book that spoke on themes I was fairly familiar with (and wondered how familiar the author was with?). I thought of the works of writers from Adorno, to Freire, to Fanon, to Sartre, all who have touched on being, non-being, dehumanization, and reclamation of humanity in a political lens.
But as I said before, Liminal does not try to deeply analyze these concepts in a political context, but within the context of the narrator's own life and experiences. He makes them personal. These grand concepts united with the banality of every day life, and the relationships he has formed.
In the end the book is much more about love than death. His musings on the death-life dynamic turn into a nostalgic trip into the people who have been a part of his life, with the central relationship being with his own mother. The very last chapter encompasses this the strongest, bursting with love, not just for his mother but life itself and all its many experiences.
At first the narrator comes off as a bit naval-gazey in his endless obsession with the relationship between life and death and the uncanny (liminal) space between. But there's more to it than that.
The book starts with the narrator discovering his mother dead in her room and transforms into an autobiography. Some parts made me roll my eyes, others were amusing. Again, the strength of the book seemed to have come later (or at least, maybe it took me that long to get "into" the book?) and as the narrator grew older.
The narrator brushes with politics a little bit. Throughout most of the book it came off as, well, not shallow but not particularly deep either, and it gave me more of a liberal impression. The ending was stronger though, pulling from more contemporary events like the 2016 election of Trump and the UK voting to leave the European Union, and connects the resurgence of fascism with the Lacanian death drive. Which is by no means a new analysis, but certainly an accurate one (Marxist theorists view capitalism itself as a death drive, and fascism is capitalism in crisis).
Being fairly familiar with a lot of Marxist writings (as well as Lacanian concepts) I was able to bring a wider context to this book that spoke on themes I was fairly familiar with (and wondered how familiar the author was with?). I thought of the works of writers from Adorno, to Freire, to Fanon, to Sartre, all who have touched on being, non-being, dehumanization, and reclamation of humanity in a political lens.
But as I said before, Liminal does not try to deeply analyze these concepts in a political context, but within the context of the narrator's own life and experiences. He makes them personal. These grand concepts united with the banality of every day life, and the relationships he has formed.
In the end the book is much more about love than death. His musings on the death-life dynamic turn into a nostalgic trip into the people who have been a part of his life, with the central relationship being with his own mother. The very last chapter encompasses this the strongest, bursting with love, not just for his mother but life itself and all its many experiences.
October 23, 2021
Récit déroutant qui pousse à l'extrême l'expérience du chat de Schrödinger.
Jordan, vivant avec sa mère malade, s'inquiète lorsqu'un jour celle-ci ne semble pas se lever. Il décide alors d'aller vérifier que tout vas bien. En ouvrant la porte de sa chambre, il la trouve là, allongée dans son lit, sans être en mesure de savoir si celle-ci vit toujours.
Durant la seconde qu'il lui faudra pour le déterminer, Jordan se questionnera sur les choix l'ayant mené jusqu'ici et guidera le lecteur dans une introspection, sans pudeur ni retenue, des dernières années de sa vie.
Dans ce récit mêlant faits réels et fiction, Jordan Tannahill aborde un certain nombre de sujets, se questionne beaucoup, divague parfois, mais pour toujours en revenir à ce qui importe, à savoir sa mère, allongée dans ce lit, durant cette unique seconde.
Jordan, vivant avec sa mère malade, s'inquiète lorsqu'un jour celle-ci ne semble pas se lever. Il décide alors d'aller vérifier que tout vas bien. En ouvrant la porte de sa chambre, il la trouve là, allongée dans son lit, sans être en mesure de savoir si celle-ci vit toujours.
Durant la seconde qu'il lui faudra pour le déterminer, Jordan se questionnera sur les choix l'ayant mené jusqu'ici et guidera le lecteur dans une introspection, sans pudeur ni retenue, des dernières années de sa vie.
Dans ce récit mêlant faits réels et fiction, Jordan Tannahill aborde un certain nombre de sujets, se questionne beaucoup, divague parfois, mais pour toujours en revenir à ce qui importe, à savoir sa mère, allongée dans ce lit, durant cette unique seconde.
January 23, 2022
«Liminal» est un grand roman, un très grand roman, unique, reposant en équilibre sur cette seconde où le narrateur se retrouve face à sa mère inerte dans son lit, face à lui-même, face à leur histoire commune. Jordan Tannahill n’échappe jamais ce mince fil, en fait des boucles, une adresse à la mère, au gré de réflexions, de souvenirs, d’hypothèses, d’analogies, de science, de questionnements laissés en suspens, de variabilité du rapport au corps, au cerveau, à la conscience, à l’art, aux croyances, aux relations, à la mort. Un roman magnifiquement écrit, tendre, poignant, puissant, multidimensionnel, maîtrisé, d’une très grande beauté, d’une très grande profondeur, que j’ai naturellement lu lentement et contemplativement pour capter, comprendre, laisser les mots ancrer leur trace. Un roman porté en français dans une traduction qui coule de source, par Mélissa Verreault.
January 6, 2024
I choose this book because its title satisfies a prompt from a reading challenge; I knew nothing about this book or author before reading it.
When I thought it was a work of fiction, I was impressed with its creativity and the fact that the story was completely unpredictable. By the time I realized it’s a memoir, I was again impressed with its creativity - the entire book takes place within that singular moment in the doorway, and yet covers almost a lifetime of the author’s experience. This is a really unique and enjoyable read.
Update: after reading more about this book and Tannahill, I’m not entirely sure if this is fiction or a memoir. It’s classified as a novel, but all the people, locations, and events seem to align with the real world.
When I thought it was a work of fiction, I was impressed with its creativity and the fact that the story was completely unpredictable. By the time I realized it’s a memoir, I was again impressed with its creativity - the entire book takes place within that singular moment in the doorway, and yet covers almost a lifetime of the author’s experience. This is a really unique and enjoyable read.
Update: after reading more about this book and Tannahill, I’m not entirely sure if this is fiction or a memoir. It’s classified as a novel, but all the people, locations, and events seem to align with the real world.
May 21, 2024
This book was quite a journey, literally into conscienceness itself as the back of the books so claims!
Jordan takes the readers with him in his mind and we relive his memories with him, and the characters are fun and entertaining and also really deep in their passions and studies. There are ranges of topics that I cannot myself comprehend, and there are others that are fixated on way past the line of comfortable, bordering on annoying.
It's the sort of book you've got to read yourself to get a picture of where you're going and it might make you recall how you feel about your own people and family, and that really makes you stop and think and reflect for yourself. Your own conscienceness journey may begin.
Jordan takes the readers with him in his mind and we relive his memories with him, and the characters are fun and entertaining and also really deep in their passions and studies. There are ranges of topics that I cannot myself comprehend, and there are others that are fixated on way past the line of comfortable, bordering on annoying.
It's the sort of book you've got to read yourself to get a picture of where you're going and it might make you recall how you feel about your own people and family, and that really makes you stop and think and reflect for yourself. Your own conscienceness journey may begin.
February 12, 2025
Je ne savais pas dans quoi je m’embarquais alors que j’ouvrais la première page de ce livre sans description sur la 4e de couverture… Le titre et l’illustration m’ont suffisamment intriguée pour que je m’y plonge sans m’informer davantage. j’ai d’abord été surprise par la profondeur du sujet et la lenteur de l’évolution. On comprend rapidement que l’entièreté du roman se déroule dans les secondes où Jordan ouvre la porte de chambre de sa mère et la constate inerte. Est-elle morte ou la surprend-il entre deux respirations lentes alors qu’elle est toujours assoupie? S’ensuit une série de souvenirs et de questionnements philosophiques sur le corps et l’esprit qui m’ont suffisamment intéressée pour que je le savoure jusqu’à la fin.
April 24, 2023
4.
Really good but unfortunately it shows glimpses of being really great and then fails to deliver exactly on what it promises in the opening pages. I was really sold on this for the first several chapters but then it drifts too far from the central plot and theming and just kinda winds up telling a roughly fictionalized version of the author's story? It definitely collapses back in on itself and delivers an absolutely beautiful final chapter but I really could've done with some of the fat being cut out and a greater focus on instances of overlap and argument with the author and his mother. Supplementary stories welcome, so long as they aren't bloated which too many were here.
Really good but unfortunately it shows glimpses of being really great and then fails to deliver exactly on what it promises in the opening pages. I was really sold on this for the first several chapters but then it drifts too far from the central plot and theming and just kinda winds up telling a roughly fictionalized version of the author's story? It definitely collapses back in on itself and delivers an absolutely beautiful final chapter but I really could've done with some of the fat being cut out and a greater focus on instances of overlap and argument with the author and his mother. Supplementary stories welcome, so long as they aren't bloated which too many were here.
May 28, 2022
more of a 3.5 than a 4, but this stupid website doesn’t have half stars. too lazy to write an actual review, so I’m lifting this verbatim from a conversation with a friend: “because of my intellectual and physical crush, I will read anything Jordan writes and like it, but I’m also into some of the pretentious shit he writes about. The akerman stuff? Felt like it was written for me! But as I’m reading it it’s impossible to ignore that he wrote it in a way that is soooooo alienating to 95% of the world”
April 15, 2018
Personal, poetic, touching, uncomfortable but always with a forward focus. Reminded me a bit of Chris Kraus, Jacob Wren and Sheila Heti in it's mix of deeply personal mixed with some fiction. While a book on death could be boring as hell (not a new subject to say the least) Jordan brings a fresh set of questions and views to the table.
He is a friend so I am biased but I loved reading this book so so much
He is a friend so I am biased but I loved reading this book so so much
September 3, 2019
This is where I called it quits:
“The moment the first plane struck the North Tower I was in the fourth and final stall of the ground floor boys’ bathroom, bent over, examining the first, tentative hair on my ball sack.”
Really? What the fuck is this shit?
The whole book, from what I can see, is about this guy’s meandering thoughts upon walking in on his dead mom. Why didn’t I check the reviews before making this impulse buy?
“The moment the first plane struck the North Tower I was in the fourth and final stall of the ground floor boys’ bathroom, bent over, examining the first, tentative hair on my ball sack.”
Really? What the fuck is this shit?
The whole book, from what I can see, is about this guy’s meandering thoughts upon walking in on his dead mom. Why didn’t I check the reviews before making this impulse buy?
July 16, 2022
Wow! A friend recommended this book by Ottawa born writer Jordan Tannahill and it was fantastic. Although it is fictional there are plenty of parallels to his own life. It starts with the narrator, Jordan, waking up his mother and seeing that she has passed in her sleep. This starts the author in an exploration of the split second where being becomes non-being. There is philosophy mixed with incidences in Jordan’s life (real or fictional). It all is a wonderful, thought-provoking read.
May 14, 2018
Finally at 11:04 in the morning Jordan decides to check on his mother, who has slept in, before going out himself because he knew he would worry about her. As he sees her in her bed he wonders, a) You are asleep or b) You are dead. He then takes us through his life and thoughts. Not really the kind of book that I like reading.
I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads.
I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads.
August 6, 2018
This was one of those books I needed to think about after I finished to decide how I felt about it. I really enjoyed the philosophical aspects of what it is to be human and partake in this world. The rest of the story bored me at times and I struggled to push through it. I liked it but didn't love it
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