Soul of All Great Designs

For Alec, an independent businessman and classic car aficionado, life has been a series of lies that he has told himself and the people around him. Raised by a stay-at-home mother, and a father who worked on the line at an automotive factory in the Greater Toronto Area, Alec sets himself up as an interior designer. His success, he believes, is due as much to his talents as to the false impression he creates among his clients: he is a fashionable and trendy gay man, well-known in his world. Sumintra, or 'Sue', as she calls herself, does not chafe at her parents' expectations for her, as she lives a separate and secret life. When she meets Alec at a classic car show, their private worlds connect and they fall in love. The trouble for them is that they have public lives that are contrary to their personal hopes and fears. In a short novel that resembles Coetzee's Disgrace in both the elegance of its writing and its emotional impact, Neil Bissoondath has forged the finest novel of his career.