{"id":1475,"date":"2014-10-24T09:46:34","date_gmt":"2014-10-23T23:46:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/?p=1475"},"modified":"2014-10-24T09:57:28","modified_gmt":"2014-10-23T23:57:28","slug":"twenty-three-at-the-limbo-cafe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/?p=1475","title":{"rendered":"twenty-three (at the limbo cafe)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today – oh joy of joys! – a guest post from the inestimable Jane Bryony Rawson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Jane is the author of A Wrong Turn at the Office of Unmade Lists <\/em>(published by Transit Lounge<\/a>), which has most recently been shortlisted for the Most Underrrated Book Award 2014<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Writing in The Australian<\/em><\/a>, Ed Wright said, of Jane’s debut novel:<\/p>\n

In some ways,<\/em> A Wrong Turn at the Office of Unmade Lists is reminiscent of early Paul Auster, most notably <\/em>In the Country of Last Things. There’s something too of the sheer storytelling joy that you find in Neil Gaiman, the meaning subsidiary to the narrative adventure. While early Peter Carey is an exception, we don’t often see this kind of fiction in Australian literature. It’s the strand of the novel affiliated with Cervantes’ <\/em>Don Quixote rather than the later work of the realists. Rawson has taken risks with plausibility and triumphed.<\/em><\/p>\n

Triumphed! Yes, indeed she has, in this playful, adventurous, mysterious marvel of a book.<\/p>\n

But today, she’s\u00a0making\u00a0a guest contribution\u00a0to\u00a0the 200 words\/200 days<\/em> project. Enjoy!<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>Still, it was an improvement on yesterday when, after I\u2019d been queuing for four days and nine hours, some woman tried to push in in front of me, claiming she\u2019d earned it because she\u2019d \u2018lived a righteous life\u2019.<\/p>\n

‘We\u2019ve all lived righteous lives,\u2019 I told her, but she simply wouldn\u2019t be budged.<\/p>\n

Imagine my delight when she got to the head of the line and had her application knocked back. \u2018Human, madam?\u2019 they said. \u2018No, I don\u2019t think so. You\u2019ll be a Vietnamese Mossy Frog next time around.\u2019 Unfortunately I couldn\u2019t hear what she\u2019d done to deserve it, but if her queue-pushing behaviour was anything to go by \u2026<\/p>\n

Now, of course, my<\/i> record is spotless; well, I don\u2019t have to tell you, you\u2019ve seen my file. You haven\u2019t? I could get you a copy if \u2026 Of course. Well, take my word for it: my record is spotless. So imagine my horror when the functionary told me it was going to be limbo for me. Limbo! Nothing befitting your status sir, they told me. No longer such a thing as a blissful life on earth. But if you\u2019d like to wait in the coffee shop for the next thousand years or so we\u2019re sure things will improve and we can find a spot to suit. Failing that, the situation for algae is looking up so if you\u2019d like take a gamble on reincarnating as a tepid-ocean life-form \u2026<\/p>\n

Algae? I didn\u2019t proselytise a fundamentalist religion so I could come back as algae. Imagine! If I were \u2026 sorry? … Oh no, no sugar, thank you. But if you have Stevia?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today – oh joy of joys! – a guest post from the inestimable Jane Bryony Rawson. Jane is the author of A Wrong Turn at the Office of Unmade Lists (published by Transit Lounge), which has most recently been shortlisted for the Most Underrrated Book Award 2014. Writing in The Australian, Ed Wright said, of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1476,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[725,167,288],"tags":[810,809,813,811,812],"class_list":["post-1475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-200-words-200-days","category-on-writing","category-short-works","tag-a-wrong-turn-at-the-office-of-unmade-lists","tag-jane-bryony-rawson","tag-limbo-cafe","tag-most-underrated-book-award-2014","tag-transit-lounge"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4LH1G-nN","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/limbo.jpg?fit=259%2C194","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1475"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1479,"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1475\/revisions\/1479"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}