The Incident Report
by Martha Baillie
In a Toronto library, notes appear, written by someone who believes he is Rigoletto, the hunchbacked jester from Verdi's opera. Convinced that the young librarian, Miriam, is his daughter, he promises to protect her. Little does he know how much loss she has already experienced; or does he? Strikingly original in its structure, composed of 140 highly distilled, lyric “reports," the novel depicts the tensions between private and public storytelling and the subtle dynamics of a socially exposed workplace. Reports on bizarre public behavior intertwine with reports on the private life of the novel's narrator. Both mystery and love story, The Incident Report daringly explores the fragility of our individual identities.