The Origin of Species: A Novel-Fast Shipping

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Winner of the 2008 Governor General’s Award for Fiction

Montreal during the turbulentmid-1980s: Chernobyl has set Geiger counters thrumming across the globe, HIV/AIDSis cutting a deadly swath through the gay population worldwide, and locally, tempersare flaring over the recent codification of French as the official language of out in a seedy apartment near campus, Alex Fratarcangeli (“Don’t worry. .. . I can’t even pronounce it myself”), an awkward, thirty-something grad student,is plagued by the sensation that his entire life is a fraud. Scarred by a distantfather and a dangerous relationship with his ex Liz, and consumed by a flounderingdissertation linking Darwin’s theory of evolution with the history of human narrative,Alex has come to view love and other human emotions as “evolutionary surplus, haphazardneural responses that nature had latched onto for its own insidious purposes.” WhenAlex receives a letter from Ingrid, the beautiful woman he knew years ago in Sweden,notifying him of the existence of his five-year-old son, he is gripped by a Alex’s thoughts grow darkest, he recalls Desmond, the British professorwith dubious credentials whom he met years ago in the Galapagos. Treacherous anddespicable, wearing his ignominy like his rumpled jacket, Desmond nonetheless caughtAlex in his thrall and led him to some life-altering truths during their weeks exploringDarwin’s islands together. It is only now that Alex can begin to comprehend theseunlikely life lessons, and see a glimmer of hope shining through what he had thoughtwas meaninglessness.