Description: This is magic realism Canadian style. Gabriel Garcia Marquez meets Raymond Chandler, in Toronto. What do I mean? The Ticking Heart is a story about the inevitable and the inescapable. For the protagonist Charlie, the inevitable and inescapable truth is that his marriage is over and he needs to get on with it. To force his hand (or rather his heart), the universe intervenes by “poof” and Charlie finds himself in Metamorphia, a place where nothing is as it seems. Charlie is a private detective, summoned by an ex-girlfriend, to resolve the unpleasant matter of where her beloved has hidden his heart. There’s a cyclops, a man with twigs for arms, and a jail that you put yourself into voluntarily. I can’t explain the crazy, but this is a fun read.
Poof is how people get in and out of Metamorphia. For Charlie, the clock is ticking. His kids have karate, and the ex-girlfriend has replace his heart with a ticking bomb. Falling in and out of love is tricky business!
Who is it for? Fans of film noir, scifi, and magic realism. If you’re a fan of Kaufman and his previous works then no doubt you have already read this one. It’s quirky, cute and at its heart a fable about what it means to love.
Favourite moment: Chapter 16: Return of the Cyclops
“It was raining sheet music when Charlie came out of the Library of Blank Pages. Crisp white scores, lined with staffs and dotted with notes, fell through the air. Each page struck a note as it hit the ground, producing random plunks, a Cage-like cat pacing the length of a piano. Charlie didn’t try to figure out what it mean. He allowed himself to become engrossed in the beauty of it. That is why he didn’t notice how quickly the Cyclops was approaching him.”