VOICE OF THE FISH

Lars Horn holds MAs from the University of Edinburgh; the École normale supérieure, Paris; and Concordia University, Montreal. Horn’s work has appeared in the Kenyon Review, Write Across Canada, and New Writing Scotland. They live in Miami.

“Horn wants ‘language and narrative to carry more physicality. Voice of the Fish meets this desire with a narrative that swells and recedes, with intimate depictions of the writer’s life as well as more distant tales of Pliny the Elder, a 100-year-old manuscript found in the belly of a codfish, and the history of tattooing.” —Corinne Manning, New York Times Book Review 

“Lars Horn’s Voice of the Fish was one of those books that left me changed. . . . The writing, sentence for sentence, is extraordinary.” —Alexander Chee, The Millions

“[…] Horn offers fascinating piscine lore, rendered in prose that’s grounded and evocative even when hallucinatory […]. The result is a sonorous meditation on living a fluid life.” –Publishers Weekly

“Horn’s story sparkles with emotional intensity. A promising literary debut.” –Kirkus Reviews

“Although they don’t explicitly say this, Horn’s work is essentially an archival one, writing themselves, their body, their gender, and the enigmatic nature of their identity, which ‘exists for the most part as unseen, unworded, unintelligible,’ into our world and the historical record. They leave us with a sense of possibility of what could be, and as their “body finally breathed” at the end of the book, they give us the permission to let ours breathe, also.” —Stef Rubino, Autostraddle 

1. Voice of the Fish touches on numerous subjects, from classical literature to mythology to actual fish. What links do you see between these themes?

2. Voice of the Fish intersperses longer narrative sections with shorter explorations of various topics and events. How does this structure strengthen Horn’s project as a whole? How does this approach differ from a more linear narrative?

3. Some of the most striking images in the book involve Horn modeling for their mother’s photography and having their body cast for sculptural works. How do those experiences relate to Horn’s sense of their own body? How do these artworks connect to Horn’s sense of the divide between interiors and exteriors?

4. This is a work of nonfiction that is both deeply personal and heavily researched. How do these two aspects complement each other?

5. Rather than “artwork as the static end of a creative process,” Lars Horn expresses their attraction and commitment to “artwork as a creative process” (page 38). How does Voice of the Fish embody this distinction?

6. How does Horn’s trip to Georgia connect them back to both an earlier time and an earlier version of themself? What part does the speaking of Russian play?

7. Aquatic life and aquariums figure throughout the book. How might the threaded essay itself function as an aquarium?

8. Horn’s loss of language was a major life event. How do you think losing and then regaining their voice shaped this book?

9. What are some of the ways Horn defines fluidity? How do they describe and explore its characteristics and effects? How do these approaches compare and contrast to your own definitions of fluidity?

10. On page 7 Horn states, “Nonbinary, transmasculine—my gender exists, for the most part, as unseen, unworded, unintelligible. . . .” What might gender look like written beyond the blurring of a male-female binary?” How does Voice of the Fish deliver answers to this question?