Synopses & Reviews
When a mad dentist steals people's teeth, Miss Lamp comes to town.
Miss Lamp, a young and savvy lawyer, is holed up in Room 32 of the Peachland Hotel, waiting for a perfect grilled cheese sandwich and reviewing the case of Delano, the teeth-stealing dentist everybody loves to hate.
Meanwhile, the narrator takes us on a tour of Miss Lamp's memories, stories of her family, the adventures of those who knock on her door. There's Miss Lamp's mother, Abby, and her mean grandmother. There's the supremely lovable Paper Boy, abused by Delano and in love with a younger Miss Lamp. There's naive Room Service Boy, on the hunt for the perfect tomato soup to accompany Miss Lamp's grilled cheese; at the grocery store he meets the assertive Banana Tray Hair could it be love?
These characters' stories weave together into a tangle - like moths to a light, they all kaleidoscope back to our Miss Lamp in her floral hotel room. She invites you in to smell the flowers, to walk in someone else's shoes, to eat a peach, to watch a magpie pick for gold.
Synopsis
Fiction. When a mad dentist steals people's teeth, Miss Lamp comes to town. When Miss Lamp comes to town, she stays in Room 32 of the Peachland Hotel. As she waits for a well-crafted grilled cheese sandwich--with pickle on the side, of course--and a bowl of tomato soup, she drifts back to her past, picking and pocketing, her memories along the way: meet Delano, Paper Boy, Abby and Grandma, and see Room Service Boy and Banana Tray Hair as their romance blossoms. Their stories all hum around the luminous Miss Lamp, a remarkably attractive litigator with a bag full of discoveries. MISS LAMP invites you to smell the flowers, walk in someone else's shoes, eat a peach and watch a magpie pick for gold. MISS LAMP is a story about stories, a story to set things right. "To read Miss Lamp is to see daily life again in clear, sharp lines and delightfully bright colours"--Larissa Lai. Chris Ewart lives in Calgary, where he recently received his MA in English. His play Billy's Drums will appear in 2006.