Shockingly original and intensely intelligent, 8 × 10 is a series of snapshots of a world torn apart by war and migration.

Fearless in form, Michael Turner’s 8 × 10 casts aside traditional narrative structure and characterization to delve deeper into the issues gnawing at today’s global society. Through a sequence of possibly intertwined events, Turner creates a challenging portrait of our modern age, drawing solely on the actions of people rather than their appearance — whether advertising executives or soldiers, tailors or doctors — they fall in love, have children, fight in wars, and flee their homes. In 8 × 10 there are no names, no racial or ethnic characteristics, and only a vague sense of time. Turner’s characters, familiar yet implacable, are both no one and everyone.

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8x10 is a work of fiction, written in spare prose. Its title is derived from a commercial portrait format (the 8x10 glossy) and is related to the structural layout of the book: the lives of eight people — and the lives they come in contact with — told over ten events, each.

With respect to who these people are, no one is known by their names or their ethnicity but by their relationships to each other — son, mother, sister, father, aunt, etc. — and by their occupations — tailors, sales representatives, art gallerists, bartenders, soldiers. doctors, gangsters, musicians, etc. Some are known by their circumstances — émigrés, immigrants, refugees; others by their actions — thief, bully, murderer.

We never know what year we are in, nor are places referred to by name. Events are fashioned so that we are unsure whether we are in North America, Africa, South America, Europe or Asia. All events are interrelated. A portraiture based on behaviour.

Why expend so much energy on namelessness, timelessness?

8x10 is an attempt to write an accessible work of contemporary fiction that speaks to our current moment — one of war and migration, uncertainty and indecision, love and loss. The only way to achieve this, I think, is to leave things as open and varied as possible.

As readers we are required to bring something of ourselves to the texts before us. Many of us do that when looking at an abstract painting — rather than comment on the composition, the colour, the surface and the textures, we say stuff like, I see a child’s face. Which is fine. 8x10 is full of children.

Sincerely,

Michael Turner

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Praise for The Pornographer’s Poem:
Winner of the 2000 Ethel Wilson Award for Fiction

“A relentlessly intelligent book…. A work of great accomplishment.”
— The Globe and Mail

“Turner is simply one of the best writers in this country. Reading The Pornographer’s Poem is exciting in a way books very rarely are.”
— Georgia Straight

“Funny, moving and true.”
— National Post

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Michael Turner’s first book, Company Town, was nominated for the 1992 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. His second book, Hard Core Logo, was made into an acclaimed feature film for which he received a Genie Award for his contribution to the movie’s soundtrack. His screenplay-cum-novel, American Whiskey Bar, was produced as a live television special on CityTV in 1998. Turner lives in Vancouver.

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