By Steven w. BeAt tie
The Dictionary of Animal Languages Heidi Sopinka Hamish Hamilton Canada about a third of the way into Heidi Sopinka’s debut novel, the author describes a painting her protagonist, an artist named Ivory Frame, executes while still a student: There is a group of gluttonous grotesque women, with heads … described as phallic though I thought of them as equine. They sit at a table, abundant with extravagant dishes. It is all writhing and moving and somewhat alive. There is a woman alone, with a neutral expression on her face. She is off in the corner of the painting and appears to be unaware that her fork has dug into a plump, live baby.
The final detail is startling – arguably even more so g iven t he realization t hat Sopinka is describing an actual work of 20th-century art. The work in question is La comida de Lord Candlestick, a 1938 oil on canvas by the noted English surrealist Leonora Carrington.