Local author Alan Flurry has a new book out called Cansville. This is Flurry’s sixth novel, and practice makes near perfect. His novel grounds its story around the production of a play based on Toby, the protagonist’s, life. With Toby, Flurry has created a memorable character whose flaws strike one with rich touches of insight and contradictions―a good sign of an author being committed to learning more, from one novel to the next. Flurry’s efforts are especially noteworthy as Toby experiences instances of madness while attempting to coax art from his personal history.

Cansville is both perplexing and sometimes breathtaking. Within the novel, Flurry wraps language around the reader as he constructs a linear story about a big house transposed from personal history to a theatrical setting. The missing adjective here is "temporary" and that applies to home, to history and to the theatre, as experienced by Flurry’s likeable and off-putting narrator—off-putting, here, being a compliment.

Here's a passage which best highlights Flurry’s writing: “If anything resembled the actual Big House as he [Toby] imagined it in the play, it was the Johnson Hotel, especially among its confirmed emptiness right then. As what he knew best, the hollowed-out remnant of a once lively center of activity was the stolen magic, the ill-gotten space between words that should be filled with song. Not the blues, but what people hum when there is no longer any use for external descriptions and words haven’t yet penetrated the hurt, or the joy, of a particular experience.”

Following the advice of a couple of publishing houses, Flurry recently released Cansville as an e-book. He also enlisted local musician Don Chambers to design the cover. A launch party for Cansville will take place at the Manhattan Café on Sept. 5 at 8 p.m., with a reading from Flurry and guest DJ Jack Jiggles on the decks. To find, purchase and read Cansville visit: www.alanflurry.com. Also: read our Q&A with Flurry in this A&E section...