He Felt Wonderously Justified in His Action: Kilworthy Tanner by Jean Marc Ah-Sen

Set in the “extended Ah-Sen universe”¹, Kilworthy Tanner is the pseudobiographical account of self-proclaimed people pleaser Jonno (Jean Marc Ah-Sen), who would likely throw anyone under a bus to gain the admiration (or, at least attention) of his mentor and infatuation, Kilworthy Tanner.

“I blew the lid off of [my roommate’s life and work]. I didn’t feel good about it, but the feeling of being frozen out of Kilworthy’s camp was even worse.”
“I’m not attractive to women unless loyalty … can be considered attractive.”
“I don’t think they appreciated how much of a bastard I could be. I even surprise myself sometimes.”

In the introduction, Jonno recounts the deeply personal and humiliating moments that Tanner had used for an opening (solicited by his publisher without his input) for his second book In the Beggarly Style of Imitation (Nightwood Editions, 2020), which ended up being a thinly-veiled takedown, portraying him as a former protege turned artistic thief. In this third book that is her namesake, Jonno explains that he is trying to tell the “full” story of their relationship, but for sure in a legit way that totally exposes the truly delusional and obsessive behaviour of those other guys who were in her orbit at the time, but not him personally.

Early in the story Jonno announces himself as an aspiring musician, and it’s his relationship to these initial band members that seems to anchor him to most of the characters in this story, where loyalty is proved by a willingness to be openly disloyal in this hyper-toxic coupling. Jonno first encounters Tanner at a house party hosted by his former bandmate and her former paramore, though Jonno’s adoration of her certainly preceded that meeting. After the party, Jonno is fixated on winning her approval, and pursuing Tanner as a mentor for his writing. As such, Jonno is “doing vulnerability” by telling this story of betraying almost every other named character while he and Tanner developed their new literary “movement”. Which, of course, she eventually suggests Jonno stole from her.

“… because she needs to have her prowess constantly validated.”
“It was a mistake!” I protested “I’m supposed to be able to make mistakes, aren’t I?”

The composition of Kilworthy Tanner is gravity-defying … the reader is wholly consumed by the unbearable melodrama between bandmates, publicists, lovers, family and rivals, all while being dared by Ah-Sen to label his style.

The composition of Kilworthy Tanner is gravity-defying, and the literary intelligentsia is going to have a lot of not-neutral things to say about it, but this book doesn’t belong exclusively to them. On themes of imitation, addictions, publishing culture and pettiness, the reader is wholly consumed by the unbearable melodrama between bandmates, publicists, lovers, family and rivals, all while being dared by Ah-Sen to label his style.

described by A.Y. Forget in 2020 How to Break Every Rule of Contemporary Writing and Succeed | The Walrus ↩︎

Jean Marc Ah-Sen is the author of Grand Menteur and In the Beggarly Style of Imitation. His writing has appeared in Literary Hub, Catapult, The Comics Journal, Maclean’s, Hazlitt, The Globe and Mail, The Walrus, and The Toronto Star. The National Post has hailed his writing as “an inventive escape from the conventional.”

Publisher: Véhicule Press (May 22, 2024)
Paperback 8″ x 5″ | 280 pages
ISBN: 9781550656633

Sarah Marie

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