Napoleon's Retreat

Susan Patrick is a librarian at Ryerson Polytechnical University.

This multilayered, densely written, and self-consciously postmodernist
novel is a complex tale of personalities haunted by depression, madness,
terrorism and alter egos. The format includes excerpts from more than
one novel, a diary, descriptions of a movie, and editorial asides to the
reader, all written in different styles, voices, and points of view, and
flashing back and forth in time between the 1950s and 1990s.

The story centres on Robert Napoleon (Bo) Weary (under various
aliases), scion of a wealthy Montreal business family, and his obsession
with writer and soldier of fortune Albert Hess and his Lolita-like wife,
Monica Vaux, with whom he conspires to assassinate Richard Nixon. In
later years, Weary becomes an advertising ace, peddling the poisonous
Melba Toast of Elba (named after an alleged mistress of Napoleon) Vodka
to the masses by means of erotic imagery. The large cast of characters
includes a robot called Wittgenstein; Robert Napoleon Lajoie, a
third-rate baseball player in the 1950s; Weary’s eccentric family
(suicidal brother, lobotomized sister, and exiled black-sheep gay
uncle); and the inebriated literati of Viola’s Dance Bar.

Underlying the author’s often poetic prose is a sense of nostalgia
for the simplicity of childhood, and a toying with different versions
and perceptions of the truth in the adult world. Allen displays genuine
wit and a wry sense of humor throughout. His very ambitious novel will
appeal mainly to readers who enjoy contemplating character, truth,
philosophy, and the postmodernist style.