The Hunt by Jason Dickson

The Hunt is a collection of postcards that tell the fragmented story of a nameless family’s search for the murderer of their mother. It is a narrative in miniature—a hunt—ghost story as travel tale, a historical romance handwritten on the reverse of 63 antique postcards, each “found” for its geographic location from Newfoundland to British Columbia.

The voice/text of The Hunt is parasitic in nature: it hovers, ghostly, upon the past’s discarded communication. Many of the postcards preserve their initial use: stamps, correspondence, and post office marks. Fragment upon fragment, The Hunt reveals another version of Canada’s history, read from East to West. The text on the reverse of one postcard relates the instance when the daughter enters the inside of a bird.

Jason Dickson is a bookseller, publisher and writer who lives in London, Ontario. He is the editor of Clearance: Selected Journals of Dr. Michael Purdon, Parapsychologist (BookThug 2002). He also publishes the London arts and letters magazine, The London Reader.