The Dodecahedron, or A Frame for Frames

Ronald Charles Epstein is a Toronto-based freelance writer and published poet.

Paul Glennon, an Ottawa software industry worker, won the Writer’s
Union of Canada Short fiction Award for the title story of his first
collection, How Did You Sleep? He raises the bar by following the
self-imposed constraints of France’s avant-garde Ouvroir de la
Littérature Potentielle. This means that he titled his book
Dodecahedron because its story structure is patterned after that
polygon.

Readers merely need a sophisticated sense of humour, not an advanced
geometry course, in order to appreciate this book. In “The American
Sharazad,” English explorer George Newton, a captive of the Nunca
cannibals, discovers that “he would be breakfast.” He is shocked
because “[he] had always imagined himself as an evening feast.” This
observation cleverly satirizes our own preconceptions about cannibalism.


Glennon is also indebted to America’s “alternative historians.”
“The Plot to Hide America” introduces the theory that “the church
had known about America for years before its supposed discovery by
Columbus. It was the Pope’s private empire.” Glennon is not
promoting anti-Catholic paranoia, but rather showcasing his imagination.

“Some Clippings for My Article on Machine Literature” is a series
of stories presented as citations of scientific primary sources like
Popular Mechanics Online. Glennon exploits his fabulist’s licence by
packaging his falsehoods in academic form, hoping to awe readers with
his technique.

The extinction of genies, who bear stories, is chronicled in “The
Last Story.” This piece may be an allegory for the death of
imagination in our culture. If it is, then it is Glennon’s greatest
lie.