Dayspring by Anthony Oliveira

June 1, 2024January 29, 2024 by Bryn Robinson

A new day; a new recount of an old tale, in a style at times reminiscent of how 20th-century theatre has bent space and time to retell the miracles and murder of Christ.

Make no mistake, though: while Dayspring by Anthony Oliveira – the author’s first – is a captivating tale, it is weighted in earnest emotion often lacking in delightfully campy theatre fare. And, to read Oliveira’s beautifully messy and, at times, irreverent mixture of prose and poetry, that retells the story of Christ through a queer lens and the disciple that Jesus loved – and think it is sacrilege or shock, would miss the point entirely.

The point? That, regardless of the space and time in which we find ourselves, love endures: as a thing to be revered, sanctified, held up and admired; as a mixture of frailties physical and emotional, and how the two combine to reach yet another – dare I say – spiritual – plane. (Better still: Another review refers to the work as a “refraction”, which is an excellent way of describing Oliveira’s deft hand with revisiting one of the best-known bodies of work.)

Actually, the tale told in these pages is more than love. It’s intimacy: a deeper channel that supports the love and sex described within, and which serves to lace together the hazy afternoons spent lazing with a lover who makes miracles as a matter of course, with the days being consoled after losing a love so deep it physically aches. Flashbacks and flash-forwards, the author uses the foundation of intimacy between two lovers to support lush, yet raw, and turbulent, emotion.

When you know what’s coming in a story and still cannot put it down because feel it in your bones? Well, that’s a show I’ll keep coming back to watch.

About the Author

Anthony Oliveira is a multiple National Magazine and GLAAD Award-winning author, film programmer, pop culture critic, podcaster, and PhD living in Toronto.

Publisher: Strange Light (Penguin Random House Canada Limited)
Publication Date: April 2, 2024
Language: English (432 pages)
ISBN: 9780771003820

Bryn Robinson

Website

Bryn Robinson lives in Quispamsis, NB, although she still, and always will, consider herself a Saint Johner. She uses her BA in psychology and French, and her PhD in experimental psychology, from the University of New Brunswick, to help her support health research in the province. She prefers contemporary fiction, narrative non-fiction, graphic novels and poetry - and if they are humorous, all the better. When not reading, she's exploring the New Brunswick forests and seascapes, camera in hand.