Philosophers contend with sex, death, Nazis, one another. Allen Smythe's first week on staff is not going well. He's been falsely accused of a crime (which he may have accidentally committed), falsely accused of indiscretion with a student by his ex (is it his fault if she's infatuated?), embarrassed by his hated rival, and shaken by rumours that his beloved mentor may retire. But he remains hopeful. Surely a philosophy department is composed of rational beings, governed by the deep deliberations they bring to bear on their actions. Then a shocking death throws the faculty into chaos and casts Allen into the most treacherous of all dimensions: the moral one. A raucous comedy that takes a dark turn into the past, The Realm of Means gives us a man trying hard to remember why we're supposed to be good, caught between hope and doubt, silence and betrayal--in the space between means and ends. David Hull was born in Regina, and grew up in Owen Sound, Ontario. He is the author of the acclaimed novella The Man Who Remembered the Moon, and work has appeared in The Walrus, Canadian Literature, The Malahat, The Fiddlehead, ON SPEC, and elsewhere. He was the winner of the 1998 Prairie Fire Long Fiction competition, judged by the late Matt Cohen.
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