User:ArthurTheGardener/sandbox

Jackdaw is a literary novella by British-Nigerian author Tade Thompson. It was published in 2022 by Cheerio Publishing.

Jackdaw is a novel of metafiction, written by a fictional version of the author himself, who receives a commission to write a book inspired by the work of the Irish painter Francis Bacon. During the execution of this unexpectedly challenging commission, Thompson, who is attempting to enter the mind of the artist by suppressing his own personality, first develops a sexual fixation with Henrietta Moraes, one of Bacon's models, has a number of alarming encounters with the ghost of Bacon's nanny; seeks release in sexual experimentation with the help of a professional dominatrix, and experiences what may be a mental breakdown. While he attempts to keep up a pretence of normality for the sake of his family, a bizarre alien flesh-sculpture appears in Thompson's attic study, reflecting both his own deteriorating state of mind and his possession by Bacon's influence.

When Thompson finally suffers a complete breakdown and is committed to a mental health institution, his obsession is found to be linked to a frontal lobe injury, which doctors assure him is curable.

Themes

Themes of the book include: the passion needed to create art, and the "blurred lines between creativity and madness," as well as "the thinness of the boundary between art and artist, subject and object."

Background

Thompson explains in interview that the protagonist of Jackdaw is not himself, although they share the same name, profession and family situation.

Of writing this novel, Thompson says: "Science fiction led me to Bacon. The xenomorph in Alien was designed by H.Giger, who took inspiration from a Bacon painting."

Reception

Lisa Tuttle, writing for The Guardian, described Jackdaw as: "A wild, darkly comic nightmare set on the borderlines of creativity, imagination and madness." The Daily Mail said: "The sheer unpredictability of the narrative is sustained by the easy-reading clarity of Thompson’s voice, wholly disarming as it toys gleefully with the book’s autobiographical overlap." The Financial Times says: "Jackdaw is an original and compelling account of a writer so desperate not to short-change his subject that he descends into a cycle of degradation and madness."