Sleight: A Review

The world and vision of Kirsten Kaschock’s novel Sleight (2011, Coffee House Press) are imbued with an astonishing and immersive originality, and a tenebrous surreality, which demand willing suspension of, not only disbelief, but also belief.

“Sleight” is a form of kinetic performance art falling somewhere between dance and contortionism, in which onstage “sleightists” manipulate polyhedral props constructed of glass tubing. The art is corporeal and irreal: the sleightist’s body may (metaphorically) fuse with these props, owning and being owned by them, then (quite literally) dematerialise altogether for short intervals — a cryptic phenomenon called “wicking”.

The art form, intensely popular globally, is addictive to and destructive of its practitioners, demanding physical arduousness and devotional ardour. (Sleightists require decades of therapy after the conclusion of their sleight careers.) It is “stringently antinarrative” and dogmatically resists the taking on of obvious meaning: “Sleight possesses and sleight consumes, but sleight accomplishes nothing.”

Beyond this, I’d be a fool to attempt to describe sleight, which indeed is pure literature — it can only exist in the nonvisual medium of words: an art form of literal impossibilities, made literal. One of Kaschock’s remarkable achievements is in convincing us of the possibility of this antipossible…