Abstract
This article considers Damon Galgut’s In a strange room as a work of contemporary epistolary fiction. Recent studies of epistolarity argue that the epistolary tradition remains identifiable and apparent even once woven into other genres. Though not strictly an epistolary novel, In a strange room addresses the same thematic concerns that exist in all epistolary writing – exile,loneliness, unrequited love, self-identity and trial. This article asks the same three questions that all epistolary fiction invites: To whom, for whom and why does Damon write? The epistolary mode is considered with reference to Jacques Lacan’s gaze theory. The gaze sets up an inherent secret, revealing the truth only in the final dénouement. In epistolary work, it anticipates the voyeuristic reader, compelling him or her to watch. The gaze can be found in only one of Galgut’s three novellas. It is for this reason that In a strange room makes for difficult reading. It is also why the novel is so confounding and compelling, presenting as it does the internal dialogue of a lonely man.
Highlights
Damon Galgut’s In a strange room is a strange work on all accounts
Lacan’s analysis of Poe’s story has particular relevance for any discussion of epistolary literature because, in it, he explains the workings of the gaze
Whether In a strange room succeeds as a novel is a moot point
Summary
Damon Galgut’s In a strange room is a strange work on all accounts. It is non-fiction presented as fiction, blends first and third person and is written by a writer who calls himself Damon (Galgut 2010). It is non-fiction presented as fiction, blends first and third person and is written by a writer who calls himself Damon (Galgut 2010). At the end of a relationship with a man he claims to have loved, Damon has only the scrap of paper on which the lover wrote his name: They write down each other’s addresses.
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