Dry Bones 2004

Dry Bones is also indebted to the practise and playfulness of the OuLiPo (see previous BOOKS). However, it involves a more selective use of constraints, which this time play an explicit role in the development of the novel’s story.

Whereas THE CARTOONIST is largely concerned with notions of place, in Dry Bones I wanted to look more closely at character. Personally, I’m not much of a rounded character. I change and act up (or down) depending on all sorts of things.  I’m also easily riled by reviews of novels praising the construction of consistent character above all else.

In Dry Bones, James Mason is systematically inconsistent.  A deacon in the Church of England (imagine that!), he’s sent to Geneva to help with the closure of the city’s Anglican church. While trying to off-load Thomas a Becket’s toe-bone, the church’s only treasure, he discovers that relics have a life of their own.  As professed in the Middle Ages, they impose the characteristics of their original owner on whoever approaches too closely.

In the spirit of self-improvement, James Mason can’t help but notice that Switzerland’s cemeteries contain the world’s most impressive collection of dead famous people. 

In contact with a selection of the celebrity dead unearthed from Swiss cemeteries, from Charlie Chaplin through James Joyce to John Calvin, James Mason is soon forced to decide what kind of person he really is. And how best, in the modern world, to live.

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