Thrace-born Spartacus was a slave/gladiator who led an uprising against the Roman Republic in 71 BC. Spartacus died in that fight, but his name -- and the hope his name engenders -- lives on.
Spartacus Books is now located at 1983 Commercial (1983 is an auspicious year in B.C. history), and as per the store's mandate (which includes getting books into the hands of those unable to afford them), there is a book rack out front where purchases are made by donation. There are some great books in this rack; not simply those that don't align literally with the store's politic, but those whose formal innovation could be considered in figurative resistance to a master narrative that favours linearity, transparency and closure.
One such book is Sheila Watson's slow-whirling Deep Hollow Creek, a book she wrote in the 1930s but for some reason wasn't published (by M&S) until 1992.
"I have always taken the compass as a thing to be held. Yet the hand falters measuring the fleeting body of flame." (13)
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