James Ashton

Le Town Empire James Ashton

Rambling, unfocused, convoluted, and wildly entertaining, Le Town Empire is at once a work of experimental fiction, a love letter, a satire of the avant garde, and a literary scrapbook. It's narrator welcomes his reader to the city of Toronto, Ontario, a town overcome by self-righteousness, self-importance, and private self-loathing, with which - as with it's inhabitants - he maintains the strictest of love/hate relationships. But never more so than with himself . . . He is constantly in conflicting views of himself, due to his philosophy of individuality, but also to his remorse for his lost love. The novel explores it's narrator's desire to change his identity and escape his surroundings, while simultaneously being made undeniably aware of the impossibility of doing so. He is forever tied and bound to his identity and to those around, by a network of tired memories, experiences, and personal connotations. Le Town Empire is a grandiose celebration of meaninglessness and redundancy.