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Facing his father's imminent death, and the unresolved conflict between them, Jay Kirk, award-winning magazine writer, flees on a whirlwind assignment to find a mysterious manuscript in Transylvania before escaping again to the Arctic Circle. A surreal, high-wire act of narrative nonfiction that will redefine the genre, Avoid the Day is part detective story, part memoir, and part meditation on the value of experience, with a dark pulse of existential horror. Seeking to answer the mystery of a missing manuscript by Bela Bartok, and using the assignment to avoid his father's deathbed, Kirk first travels to Transylvania. There he visits the same villages where the "Master," like a vampire in search of fresh plasma, had found his new material in the folk music of the peasants. With these stolen songs, transmuted by fire, Bartok redefined music in the 20 th Century. The author begins to lose his tether as he sees himself in Bartok's darkest and most personal work, the Cantata Profana, which revolves around fathers and sons. Convinced by an old college friend, now a documentary filmmaker, that he needs to get away from civilization period, following a psychotic episode in Eastern Europe under the spell of Bartok, Kirk joins his friend on a posh eco-tourist cruise to the Arctic. But under the influence of the midnight sun, they scrap the documentary to make a horror film instead--shot under the noses of the unsuspecting passengers and crew. Playing one of the main characters who finds himself inexplicably trapped on a ship at the end of the world, alone, Kirk gets lost in his own cerebral maze, struggling to answer his most plaguing question: can we find meaning in experience? Does any experience have meaning, even a father's death?
Résumé
"Avoid the
Day truly seems to me to push nonfiction memoir as far as it can go
without it collapsing into a singularity and I am at a loss for words. You are
just going to have to read it." –Helen Macdonald, author of H is for
Hawk
A surreal, high-wire act of narrative nonfiction that redefines the genre, Avoid the Day is part detective story, part memoir, and part meditation on the meaning of life—all told with a dark pulse of existential horror. What emerges is an unforgettable study of mortality and the artist’s journey.
Seeking to answer the mystery of a missing manuscript by Béla
Bartók, and using the investigation to avoid his father’s deathbed, award-winning
magazine writer Jay Kirk heads off to Transylvania, going to the same villages
where the “Master,” like a vampire in search of fresh plasma, had found his new
material in the folk music of the peasants. With these stolen songs, Bartók
redefined music in the 20th Century. Kirk, who is also seeking to
renew his writing, finds inspiration in the composer’s unorthodox methods, but begins
to lose his tether as he sees himself in Bartók’s darkest and most personal work,
the Cantata Profana, which
revolves around the curse of fathers and sons.
After a near-psychotic episode under the spell of Bartók, the
author suddenly finds himself on a posh eco-tourist cruise in the Arctic.
There, accompanied by an old friend, now a documentary filmmaker, the two decide
to scrap the documentary and make a horror flick instead—shot under the noses
of the unsuspecting passengers and crew. Playing one of the main characters who
finds himself inexplicably trapped on a ship at the literal end of the
world, alone, and
under the influence of the midnight sun, Kirk gets lost in his own cerebral
maze, struggling to answer his most plaguing question: can we find meaning in
experience?
