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Mantis Dreams

The Journal of Dr. Dexter Ripley

Adam Pottle

Mantis Dreams: The Journal of Dr. Dexter Ripley is a crackling, searing satire that ridicules both political correctness and the restrictive world of academia. But Adam Pottle’s first novel is also a poignant and difficult glance into the world of a man battling a rare and debilitating disease. A wheelchair user living voluntarily in a care home, Dexter Ripley lashes out at all those around him—his behaviour so outrageous yet insightful that Ripley is curiously both repelling and fascinating. With a boisterous, propulsive voice, Dexter Ripley shares his insights on life as a care home resident, his relationships with his sister and her son, his career as a professor, and, despite his bitter nature, his goal of creating a philosophy based on positivity and imagination. Through the voice of this embittered man, Pottle creates a treatise that views disability as a philosophical position rather than a physical or mental condition.

“Mantis Dreams offers a bracing and funny corrective to the kind of po-faced earnestness that continues to dominate much of this country’s literature.”

–Steve W. Beattie, The Humber Literary Review

 

“You can’t wait to see what Dexter’s going to do next. And his theorizing on disabilities is equally engaging. Why must we pity the disabled, as if they only wish to be like the majority?”

–Bill Robertson, The Star Phoenix

City of Saskatoon and Public Library Saskatoon Book Award