Icarus Transfigured: A Novel by Michael Lowell Teague
The Plot: Aiden Langford Gauge is a reclusive man who understands himself in debilitating detail. His house is his sanctuary until he comes to believe it has been invaded. He is resolved to escape this labyrinth of his making, and the monster that has come to haunt it. Yet how should he proceed? The advice of his childhood friend gets around the obstacle of his overly rational mind, while the advice of a mysterious woman circumvents the inhibitions of his “barely owned” body. Without knowing the true identity of his specter, Aiden must choose which friend to follow; and no matter where his journey to begins, his quest is the same as Biblical Jacob: He must wrestle his fiery angel to secure a blessing from a curse, and in so doing find the meaning of his life.
Table of Contents: Navigation of this site may be obtained through Next / Back tabs in the upper left hand corner of each page. To return to this table of contents, use the Contents Page tab in the bottom right hand corner of the page. Each web page is the equivalent of three to six pages of text in a typical paperbound novel.
Prologue (A Sleep) 1, (A Forgetting) 1, (A Coming from Afar) 1
Chapter One (Heaven and Hell): 1, 2
Chapter Two (The Labyrinth): 1, 2, 3
Chapter Three (Stonesthrow): 1, 2
Chapter Four (The Day the Earth Stood Still, Part 1): 1, 2
Chapter Five (The Day the Earth Stood Still, Part 2): 1, 2
Chapter Six (The Day the Earth Stood Still, Part 3): 1, 2, 3
Chapter Seven (The Day the Earth Stood Still, Part 4): 1, 2
Chapter Eight (Chaos): 1, 2
Chapter Nine (The Dancing Star, Part 1): 1, 2, 3
Chapter Ten (The Dancing Star, Part 2): 1, 2
Chapter Eleven (A Visitation): 1, 2
Chapter Twelve (The Persistence of Memory): 1, 2
Chapter Thirteen (The Ghost in the Machine, Part 1): 1, 2
Chapter Fourteen (The Ghost in the Machine, Part 2): 1, 2, 3
Chapter Fifteen (The Blind Man, Part 1): 1, 2
Chapter Sixteen (The Blind Man, Part 2): 1, 2
Chapter Seventeen (Invasion of the Body Snatcher) 1, 2, 3, 4
Chapter Eighteen (In-Betweenness) 1, 2, 3
Chapter Nineteen (The Unsayable, Part 1) 1, 2, 3
Chapter Twenty (The Unsayable, Part 2) 1, 2
Chapter Twenty-one (The Haunted Ruin) 1, 2
Chapter Twenty-two (The Doppelgänger) 1, 2
Chapter Twenty-three (The Bug Collector) 1, 2, 3, 4
Chapter Twenty-four (The Child, Part 1) 1, 2
Chapter Twenty-five (The Child, Part 2) 1, 2, 3
Chapter Twenty-six (Infinity) 1
Chapter Twenty-seven (Paradox) 1
Chapter Twenty-eight (The Sublime) 1, 2, 3
Chapter Twenty-nine (The Black Box) 1,
Chapter Thirty (The Object Lesson) 1, 2, 3, 4
Chapter Thirty-one (Deus Ex Machina) 1
Chapter Thirty-two (The Day of Eternal Noon) 1, 2,
Epilogue (The Unknowable Thing-in-Itself) 1, (The Balance of Memory) 1
Book Excerpt: “It was like him to fall in love with the lead actress and watch a film repeatedly without cessation. His gushing heart would be uncritical in its initial praise, and only with over-familiarity would his eye wander off-script into peripheral details the filmmaker never intended for scrutiny. The fantasy, from there, unraveled from the inside out, beginning innocently when an untouched water pitcher was noticed changing sides on a table during a conversation, and then onto the late discovery of a subtle tic in the actress’ facial mannerisms. Eventually it came down to reading the lips of background characters, and finally spying the one guy in the crowd looking directly into the camera and mumbling, ‘I am the devil.’ By then, he was watching an entirely different movie: a movie so painfully familiar it was completely alien.” ~from Chapter Twenty-two
Calendar:
Start date for manuscript: late October 2003
Unofficial finish date for manuscript and art: late December 2007. Book first appears in web form.
January 2011: Title Change (from An Aversion to Ladders)
March 2012 through 2021: Late Edits. (I tend to re-proofread my novel every two years and make minor changes.)
2018-2021 Edits: As a book nears its completion, the editing process is mostly a subtractive one. During July and August of 2018, I trimmed 40 pages off Icarus Transfigured’s 555-page length, which translates to 450-plus pages were the book formatted into paperback. Much of what was removed was of an indulgent nature, or autobiographical material I thought relevant at the time. As time passes, I have less allegiance to sentiments that originally infused my book, so have become a better editor.
About Author: Michael Lowell Teague is best known for his alternative comics, which appeared in anthologies such as Zero Zero and Blurred Vision. He won a Xeric Award in 1999 for his self-published comic book, Epic Dermis. His comic strip, Blender Kitty, was regularly seen in The New York Press between 2001 and 2003.
About His Protagonist: Aiden Gauge is afflicted with a mild, undiagnosed form of autism, and the reader comes to know his predicament through his story: one not intended to conceal his true life but rather, to reveal how his life requires fiction to be understood. As background, autism is not introduced as a topic until very late in the storytelling, and then only indirectly. Informing the reader of this at the outset was judged unnecessary.
Why I am publishing my book on a website: My creative life divides naturally between acts of mimicry and abstruseness. Resultantly, every reinvention of myself (composer, painter, cartoonist, writer) has been marked by the same predicament: I am too avant-garde to be mainstream, and too mainstream to be avant-garde. In a world where success depends on how well you meet an expectation, I am seen as being too conventional by one set of gatekeepers, and too different by another. (By any thoughtful inspection, I am my own thing.)
Autism is the lens through which I view not only my creative life but also the world. While most professional artists seek a style, a community, or a livelihood by their craft, my focus revolves around a hermetic process that first reverse engineers creative ventures that interest me, and then applies what I have learned to create original work.
Ongoing editing as late as 2021 has bolstered my belief that Icarus Transfigured continues to be a living document. Real-time “improvements” are one of the luxuries web publishing affords the writer over the printed page. Writing as an art, for me, is only possible because of a computer.
Comments are welcomed and can be sent to me at: teaguemichael5858@gmail.com
~the author, Michael Lowell Teague
Notes on A Future Novel: In the years since the completion of my first book, I wrote a primer on God, metaphysics, and science. This philosophical treatise was abandoned, although I have cannibalized ideas in it for a new project because, frankly, I prefer writing stories.
After my father passed away in February 2010, I quietly returned to my book notes. By the time my mother passed away in September of 2013, those notes had become chapters in a titleless book. Medical issues have dominated my life since 2015, and slowed progress on this new novel.
This book may be compared to Icarus Transfigured, and thematically it may be thought of as a continuation. It is populated with far fewer characters, and is chiefly a meditation on grief and incorporeal realities.
Book Copyright ©2007 Michael Teague. All rights reserved. Site Copyright ©2022 Michael Teague. All rights reserved.