Toby Christian. Commuters

‘The ghosts of Gertrude Stein and Francis Ponge hover about these short texts, in which objects become subjects, surface depth and language reality.’ – Tom McCarthy‘In Commuters, the material world is being remade: as confounding and saturated as we pretend that it isn’t.’ – Sally O’Reilly‘…a way of seeing that is startlingly original, and profoundly consoling.’ – Claire-Louise BennettAboard a beaten bus, fragile passengers are transported to a gloomy stop, while a cat stares silently, alone in a stationed trailer.‘Commuters’, the third book of writing by British artist Toby Christian (b.1983), bids us to work with a new train of accounts, travelling between objects and spaces from Vienna to Matera, Liverpool to London.Written in Christian’s trademark dazzling detail, passages teem with feral poetics in descriptions that tilt between the headspaces of guided meditation and hyper-forensic rave. ‘Commuters’ is a searching shuttle through alternative text, zooming to a stellar end.With an introduction by Chris Fite-Wassilak.