Moore, Jeffrey 1952-

views updated

Moore, Jeffrey 1952-

PERSONAL:

Born 1952, in Montréal, Québec, Canada; son of Robert (a bacteriologist) and Barbara (a teacher). Education: University of Toronto, B.A.; University of the Sorbonne, French language certificate; University of Ottawa, M.A., 1982.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Montréal, Québec, Canada, and Val Morin, Québec, Canada. Agent—Laura Susijn, 820 Harrow Rd., London, England NW10 5JU. E-mail—moore3007@sympatico.ca.

CAREER:

Freelance translator and lecturer for the Translation Department, University of Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada, and the French Department, Concordia University.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Commonwealth First Book award, 2000, for Prisoner in a Red-Rose Chain; Canadian Authors Association Prize for fiction, 2005, for The Memory Artists.

WRITINGS:

Prisoner in a Red-Rose Chain (novel), Thistledown Press (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada), 1999.

The Memory Artists (novel), St. Martin's Griffin (New York, NY), 2006.

Author of short story "Delight in Disorder" published in Matrix Magazine, 2001.

TRANSLATOR

Pierre Vallières, The Impossible Québec (translation of Un Québec impossible), Black Rose Books (Montréal, Québec, Canada), 1980.

(With Neil Kroetsch) The Body on the Cross, Montréal Museum of Fine Arts (Montréal, Québec, Canada), 1992.

Century of Splendour, Seuil (Montréal, Québec, Canada), 1993.

Music Sound/The Michael Snow Project, Knopf (Toronto, Québec, Canada), 1994.

Stephen Schofield, Southern Alberta Art Gallery (Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada), 1994.

Lost Paradise: Symbolist Europe, McClelland & Stewart (Toronto, Québec, Canada), 1995.

Magritte, Montréal Museum of Fine Arts (Montréal, Québec, Canada), 1996.

Pierre Beaudoin, La Piscine/The Pool, Cube Éditeurs (Montréal, Québec, Canada), 2001.

Also translator of Leitmotif, a play produced by Théâtre Les Deux Mondes. Translator of catalogs, including Irene F. Whittome, Canadian Centre for Architecture (Montréal, Québec, Canada,) 1998.

SIDELIGHTS:

Canadian author and translator Jeffrey Moore's first novel, Prisoner in a Red-Rose Chain, is a quirky romantic comedy about a young man, Jeremy Davenant, who is convinced that a page ripped out of an encyclopedia holds the key to his future. Interpreting everything that happens through this page, he has a series of adventures and misadventures, becoming "a sort of Montréal version of Young Werther," according to Frank Moher in the National Post. The book is a chronicle of Jeremy's obsessions, which lead him to blur the distinction between fantasy and reality. He tries to woo a dark-haired woman next door, convinced that she is part of his "script" even when she turns out to be a lesbian. He also seeks out people whose astrological signs match that of a Zulu chief, and he goes as far as a Ukrainian city to pursue his girlfriend, Milena, whom he compares to a Shakespeare character.

Moore, a university lecturer and translator, manages to satirize academia while chronicling Jeremy's peripatetic life. "Jeremy's university life is particularly absurdist (and accurate) as his academic colleagues reveal their inability to function outside of the world of literary texts," reported Peter Darbyshire in Quill & Quire. Dar- byshire compared Moore's "endless referential chains" and "labyrinthian twistings" to the writings of Umberto Eco or Jorge Luis Borges. Although Darbyshire did point out "weaknesses" in the novel, such as Jeremy's excessive lovesickness for Milena, he was satisfied that the novel returned to "challenging questions, concluding with change and uncertainty rather than a simple romantic resolution." In contrast to Darbyshire's comments on the relationship between Jeremy and Milena, Toronto Globe & Mail reviewer Jim Bartley wrote that the protagonist's "pursuit of [Milena's] thoroughly alienated affection is the engine driving the rest of this lively … story of romantic obsession." Bartley went on to compliment Moore's "keen characterizations," as well as his "hugely engaging set pieces and a plot that traces a gratifying arc." Moher, who called Moore "a new, sophisticated comic author who combines John Irving's inventive virtuosity with Tom Green's contempt for everything stuffy and comfy," concluded his review of Prisoner in a Red-Rose Chain by asserting that Moore had created "a new sub-genre in Canadian literature; urban fiction with a smile."

In Moore's second novel, The Memory Artists, the author "deftly explores the intricacies of human memory while drawing a touching portrait of human relationships," observed Library Journal contributor Kevin Greczek. The work concerns Noel Burun, a psychology graduate student beset by the rare neurological conditions of hypermnesia—near-total recall—and synaesthesia—the ability to see and hear words as colors. At the same time, his mother, Stella, suffers from Alzheimer's disease, and Noel determines to find a cure for her. Enlisting the help of three eccentric friends with memory issues of their own—the womanizing Norval Blaquiere, former Hollywood starlet Samira Darwish, and the painfully troubled J.J. Yelle—Noel begins a series of outrageous experiments designed to create a new wonder drug. "This is a rich novel, erudite and funny, as much about brain chemistry, the wellness industry and poetry as it is about memory," attested Michael J. Agovino in the New York Times Book Review. According to Joanne Wilkinson in Booklist: "Moore explores every facet of memory—as both a burden and a blessing—in this delightful and inspired story."