Hovering World

"Hovering World is surrealist in its every nerve. At the heart of the book is the idea of a city with limitless physical and metaphysical terrain." – Daniel Allen Cox, author of several novels and I Felt the End Before It Came: Memoirs of a Queer Ex-Jehovah's Witness, from his introduction to the anniversary edition "Peter Dubé's debut novel follows the life of an intensely lonely man named Julian, who watches the flashing TV and wonders if "somebody else is looking at these same pictures and … finding the same messages." Rather than gaze quixotically at the moon and wonder if someone is out there, Julian looks to the tube for hope. Julian's alienation is only accentuated by the fact that he is almost perpetually surrounded by friends. Peter Dubé creates a fine tension between Julian's complex inner monologue and the mostly shallow transactions within his social sphere. While the conversations are generally mundane, the reader must run to catch up with Julian's thoughts, which rattle around his mind like a marble in a maze. The book takes a day-in-the-life form: on this particular day a photograph of an angel is mysteriously delivered to Julian. From here, the reader follows Julian's quest to resolve this mystery, and his obsession grows the pulse of the book also quickens. In the final quarter of Hovering World readers find themselves whirling from frantic dance floors to the steamy corridors of a gay sauna. Dubé takes us effortlessly through these layers of space, but what is most poignant is the fact that Julian feels at home in none of the many haunts he frequents." – Montreal Review of Books