Involuntary Bliss

Written by Devon Code

Narrated by Hugh Gunz

A bond between three friends forms over a mutual fascination with an obscure Peruvian novella and is fractured by an accidental death. From the streets of Montreal’s Plateau and Latin Quarter to the ruins of Machu Picchu, award-winning author Devon Code's Involuntary Bliss traces this tragic affinity with dark humour and linguistic verve.

Over one hazy weekend in late August, an unnamed narrator visits his troubled friend James following a gap of many months. The two young men are set adrift in the city by way of James's memories, which flow out of him as lush set pieces—an affair, a stint volunteering at a children's hospital, a striptease show—assembling a picture of James’s haunted life in the wake of their close friend's death.

By turns comic, erotic, tender and harrowing, this freewheeling narrative sees Montreal's bohemians and biker gangs entwine with psychotropic shamanic practices in the mountains of Peru, in a tale of friendship and mortality as unpredictable as it is true to life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: ECW Press Audio
• Release date: Sep 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781771666527

Devon Code

Devon Code is a fiction writer. He is the author of Involuntary Bliss, a novel, and In A Mist, a collection of stories. His latest fiction can be read in issue 107 of Geist. In 2010, he was the recipient of the Writers’ Trust Journey Prize. Originally from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, he lives in Peterborough, Ontario, where he teaches at Fleming College.