The Blue House by Sky Gilbert | The Miramichi Reader

The Blue House by Sky Gilbert has two narrators, a primary one, Rupert, and a secondary one, Simon. Simon, however, is dominant. He tells us Rupert’s narration is a transcription of an audio recording, and he interrupts the story with repeated interventions to add context and assert control. Because, ultimately, he is in charge. Or is he? Simon is Reason to Rupert’s Passion; his is head to Rupert’s heart; he is Science to Rupert’s Art. Or maybe these categories mean nothing? More on that later.

The bulk of the novel consists of Rupert’s story, cradle to near grave – or post-grave, Rupert thinks. His reliability is suspect. He tells of his life as a childhood cello virtuoso, later turned composer. His musical life includes lessons with Vladimir Horowitz, great pianist, and a romance with Leonard Bernstein. As gossip worthy as his early life may have been, though, it’s his later reclusive life that stirs up the most plot. And motivates Simon’s intervention.

As a young man, Simon is a musician. He is rejected by Rupert as a student. He later becomes involved in computers and discovers an early work of Rupert’s that he finds exceptional. Meanwhile, Rupert has a creative explosion in his younger life, but then he becomes disillusioned with the social, economic, culture of the professional artistic life. He stops composing. He withdraws. He has a bizarre encounter with a cat, which he claims asked him to paint it blue. It dies. He sees head doctors; he attempts to kill himself.

The plot exists because Simon records Rupert’s life story, attempting to get him to locate the inspiration for his work, so he can encode it – and generate more Rupert-inspired works. Except Rupert is stubbornly inarticulate about his creative process. That is, he talks about love and frustration and his complex emotional life. Simon sees music as mathematical precision. Rupert sees music and an expression of mystery.

What is Sky Gilbert up to here? Gilbert, now in his 70s, has had a massive influence on the cultural history of Canada. Co-founder of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre – the largest and longest running LGBTQ+ theatre in the world – Gilbert is the author of eight previous novels, more than 30 plays, three volumes of poetry, and three works of non-fiction. The Blue House reads like a defense of the messiness of the creative process. Jackie Kennedy once asked Dr. Suess where he got his ideas. It was the question he hated. Who knew? Who cares? Rupert certainly doesn’t care, and he is horrified that Simon wants to recreate him via a kind of artificial intelligence.

That said, Rupert has also given up on the artistic mainstream. Late in the book he states:

I am a post-humanist. There are two kinds of post-humanists – transhumanists and Donna Haraway “compostist” post-humanists. I agree with Haraway’s primary observation that being human is an experiment that has failed.

What this means, for this reader, required further research. You can thank the internet for the following definitions. Posthumanism is a philosophical and cultural movement that challenges the idea of a fixed and essential human nature, questioning the boundaries between humans and other entities, including animals, technology, and the environment.

Transhumanism envisions a future where humans can transcend their current biological and cognitive boundaries through advancements in areas like genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, and nanotechnology. This means, for example, embedding computer chips in human bodies.

Compostism, often linked to Donna Haraway (author of A Cyborg Manifesto), draws on the process of composting (i.e., breaking down) to explore interconnectedness, decomposition, and the cyclical nature of life and death. It is associated with the idea of “becoming-with” other beings and entities, including the non-human, and acknowledging existence as transformative.

So, there’s a lot going on in Rupert’s confession, in other words. Though what would you say that is exactly? He has been reclusive, absent from the mainstream for decades. His creative process is Romantic and emotionally intuitive. He is self-destructive yet attuned to philosophical wavelengths. In conclusion, Gilbert’s novel of ideas is open to the broadest spheres, even as its plot begins narrow and moves towards an ever finer point.

Sky Gilbert is an author, playwright, director, and drag queen extraordinaire. He studied at York University and obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto. In 1978, he co-founded Buddies in Bad Times, now the largest and longest-running queer theatre company in the world. Sky is the author of eight previous novels, more than thirty plays, three volumes of poetry, and three works of non-fiction. He has been awarded three Dora Mavor Moore Awards, the Pauline McGibbon Award, and the Silver Ticket Award, and has a street named after him in Toronto. In 2005, he won the ReLit Award for his fourth novel, An English Gentleman, published by Cormorant Books.

Publisher: Cormorant Books (August 16, 2025)
Paperback 8″ x 6″ | 250 pages
ISBN: 9781770867529

Michael Bryson

Michael Bryson has been reviewing books since the 1990s in publications such as The Kitchener-Waterloo Record, Paragraph Magazine, Id Magazine, and Quill & Quire. His short story collections include Thirteen Shades of Black and White (1999) and The Lizard and Other Stories (2009). His fiction has appeared in Best Canadian Stories and other anthologies. His story Survival is available as a Kindle single. From 1999-2018, he oversaw 78 issues of fiction, poetry, reviews, author interviews, essays, and other features at The Danforth Review. He lives in Scarborough, Ontario, and blogs at Art/Life: Scribblings.