It's fall (or autumn) 2018. The Trump administration wants to fortify the United States-Mexico border, Robert 'Beto' O'Rourke is running for Senate, and British grifter Nicki Smith has just secured a low-paid glamour job at the University of Texas' Jacques Lacan Foundation. In between sleeping with the air-conditioning repair guy (or man) and watching Kate Moss make-up commercials (or advertisements) Nicki completes the first ever American-English translation of Lacan's newly discovered and highly controversial notebook - without knowing any French. An Anglo-American comedy of manners about identity and class The Jacques Lacan Foundation reveals-and revels in-the numerous pretentions that surround academia and authorship, and the institutions that foster them.
Susan Finlay is an artist and writer. She is the author of three poetry pamphlets and four previous novels. Her short texts and poems have been included in group exhibitions and performances at the Royal Academy of Arts, the Whitechapel Gallery, and Camden Arts Centre in London, and published, or are forthcoming in, Worms, MAP, POETRY, and The Stinging Fly. Residencies include Unlisted, Austin, the Freud Museum, London, and Callie's, Berlin. She lives in the UK and Berlin.
Title: The Jacques Lacan Foundation
Author: Finlay, Susan
ISBN: 9781913430085
Binding:
Publisher: MOIST
Publication Date: 2022-03-31
Number of Pages:
Weight: 0.2021 kg
Laugh-out-loud funny ... a wonderfully absurd plot ... a wild ride, wearing its intelligence lightly while still performing a detailed critique of a world where politics, capitalism and image-making are almost indistinguishable. Peter Salmon, Prospect Magazine ---------- Knowing and playful, fresh and funny, The Jacques Lacan Foundation is both an affectionate satire and a wily celebration of bibliophilia, intellectual glamour, and the institutionalised life of the mind. Rob Doyle ---------- The Jacques Lacan Foundation is perfectly mordant ... I love how this gorgeous, raucous novel delights in ruffling anyone's - including its own - desire to be 'an authentic something'. Daisy Lafarge ---------- Sick! In the best way. Stephanie LaCava ---------- The Jacques Lacan Foundation is highly recommended. Imagine a working-class Fleabag astray in Malcolm Bradbury's Mensonge. But in hipsterland Texas! Andrew Gallix ---------- The Jacques Lacan Foundation is linguistically Nabakovian, it's got Babitz eque charm, it's experimental, it's satirical, it's fucking hilarious ... destined to become a cult classic. Book Talk ---------- Absolute and unremitting irony ... ice-cube cold. Times Literary Supplement ---------- The incredible sustained moire effect carried off with such aplomb in Susan Finlay's The Jacques Lacan Foundation - really enjoying. Tony White ---------- Susan Finlay's talents as storyteller, freewheeling theorist and popular culture expert blossom in the novel ... A vindication of humour and style over theoretical solemnity, an assertion of a dynamic and necessary engagement with ideas from abroad, and a priceless guide in how to conduct oneself with poise and panache. Tribune ---------- A fun exterior but a clever punch from the inside ... an unforgettable experience. The Bobsphere ---------- The Jacques Lacan Foundation pulls off trick after impressive trick, not least in its ability to be both a virtuosic exercise in irony and a searching examination of the twin institutions-psychoanalysis and academic-at its core. I loved it. Helen Charman ---------- Brilliant. Bad puns abound in this hilarious yet affectionate pastiche of transatlantic Lacanians. Isabel Miller ---------- This joyful satire is so much fun, Just gulped it down. Clare Pollard ---------- A South London Gallery Summer Book Choice
