The Still Body Is the Perfect Body. Priscila Uppal

      Cover

      

      Selected Praise for Priscila Uppal’s Works

      Projection: Encounters with My Runaway Mother

      “Projection proves to be remarkably free of self-pity … [A] raw, passionate memoir, a fierce exercise in family exorcism.”

      — Montreal Gazette

      “Uppal is brave … made of sterner stuff than most; an inspiration to messed-up adult children everywhere.”

      — Globe and Mail

      “[S]uperbly conveyed without any excessive literary artifice … Projection is a book that’s simultaneously cerebral and visceral, and its ardent refusal of any sort of mind-body split — to sacrifice sophistication for sentiment or vice versa — is the sign of an author who has thrown herself wholly into her book.”

      — National Post

      “Incorporating movie and pop-culture references as storytelling devices is what makes this book truly shine … Above all, Uppal is an impeccable writer, deftly infusing complex scenes and emotions with power and weight … a worthy read.”

      — Quill & Quire

      “[A] heartbreaking memoir.”

      —Toronto Life

      “Intimate, sad, probing and self-aware, often very funny logbook of a harrowing encounter.”

      — Literary Review of Canada

      To Whom It May Concern

      “It is to be hoped that Uppal will continue to rival Atwood in productivity and wit. As Shakespeare might have said: Fortune, smile again on lovers of CanLit; grace us with more irresistible stories from Uppal’s unique perspective.”

      — Montreal Gazette

      “Uppal is a deep thinker, capable of carefully peeling back layer upon layer of the human psyche … makes us laugh and cry long after the last page of the novel has been read.”

      — Ottawa Citizen

      “Uppal’s writing bursts with humour, plot turns and insights … Uppal should be congratulated for writing one of the most powerful and riskiest scenes in a Canadian novel … [she] reveals herself as a compassionate and perspicacious novelist whose humanity and intelligence cannot be overlooked.”

      — Globe and Mail

      The Divine Economy of Salvation

      “In its confident voice and its unsparing, concisely powerful narrative — like Margaret Laurence at her best — Divine Economy is an impressive debut.”

      — Globe and Mail

      “A luminous debut … haunting, gripping, and surprisingly nuanced: begins as a simple mystery and turns into a work of great depth and seriousness.”

      — Kirkus starred review

      Dedication

      For Richard Teleky,

      who has been here since the beginning

      Epigraph

      Who, marked for failure, dulled by grief,

      Has traded in his wife and friend

      For this warm ledge, this alder leaf:

      Comfort that does not comprehend.

      — Edna St. Vincent Millay, “The Return”

      The Still Body Is the Perfect Body

      Though Drucilla knows it isn’t quite like that. Her body is still, her armpits in half-moons aching to collapse onto themselves, a wedge of skin pinched between the chair and her thigh, her hands upon her lap. Only perfect in that she is naked and the students will attempt to draw her to scale. Sometimes she likes to stay after class, once her terrycloth robe is safely around her shoulders. Some students leave quickly, but others stick around to talk and trade glances at drawings. Occasionally, she asks to see some of the sketches, usually glad that they miss little features that irritate her. That they don’t catch the strawberry birthmark on the side of her knee, which makes her lovers think they’ve given her an odd love-bite, or the thin wisps of light-brown hair around her belly button. She shaves carefully each morning in order to ensure a perfect triangle between her legs. Geometry is important.