Limping

The book begins with a spectacular fall. Our protagonist has escaped prison. She has scaled the wall (we do not witness the clamber, only the fall) and then dropped thirty feet to freedom. The cost of freedom, it becomes clear, is a broken ankle, the titular astragalus bone. After an initial triumph of escape artistry, she must conduct the rest of her getaway limping.

This is from a review of Albertine Sarrazin Astragal (1965) in New Escapologist Issue 18.

That’s right, we review old books as well as recent ones!

The idea is that good art, perhaps especially books, is forever. We don’t have to live on the razor’s edge of the present, no matter what other media would imply. In books, all history is our playground. That’s the whole point of writing things down really.

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