A Set of Lines: a novel by S. D. Stewart

Quotidian dystopiary meets nouveau roman

Published by Ghost Paper Archives | ISBN: 9781734939002

Last night I drew all night. I copied the images from the textbook and then I drew them again freehand—I made them move on the page, lengthened the lines and darkened the centers.

The tree, the river, the old textbook—a triptych with shifting borders hangs in a place where dreams and memories intersect. Omission and loss haunt those who live here, suspended as they are in an endless struggle to connect. Contracting and expanding as it progresses, the narrative of their existence ever-circles around a shrouded core.

The novel’s terrain lies somewhere between the surreal, labyrinthine hell of Alasdair Gray’s Lanark and the apocalyptic imagery of Anna Kavan’s Ice, and the end result is worthy of being filed on your bookshelves alongside those two immersive, unsettling fables.

—Daniel Williams, author of The Edge of the Object

There is a shorthand inherent in tackling dystopian themes, and Stewart moulds a knowing backdrop, using that shorthand to create a scaffolding which amplifies the atmosphere of benumbed melancholy … A special novel, identifying the interior zeitgeist.

—Rebecca Gransden, author of anemogram.

With cover design and interior illustrations by Nate Dorr, who since 2017 has been quietly depicting the beauty of decaying, mutated biospheres in his Disaster Landforms series.

Interior design and layout wizardry by Nathan Grover.

Read reviews on Goodreads.

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*This link goes to Bookshop.org where independent bookstores receive the full profit of the purchase price. You can designate which participating bookstore you would like to benefit from your purchases; otherwise, it goes into an earnings pool that is distributed equally among independent bookstores.

The paperback is also now available through the Ingram distribution network, so should be orderable direct through any online book retailer or as a special order through your local shop. You can also order a copy direct from Atomic Books and Quimby’s Bookstore.