Set in southern Ontario in the late nineteenth century, at a time when the machine age was coming into its own, Perpetual Motion chronicles the fortunes of settler Robert Fraser, a man obsessed with power and control. Driven by the idea of inventing a perpetual motion machine which will utilize natural energy, he neglects and destroys not only the nature around him but his own family too, as his overbearing rationality becomes a kind of tragic lunacy.
First published in 1982, Perpetual Motion is Graeme Gibson’s superb evocation of a time when faith in material progress is still challenged by superstition and a lingering belief in magic. It is an ironic yet compassionate examination of the painful consequences of human folly.
- ISBN10 0771032919
- ISBN13 9780771032912
- Publish Date 16 October 1982 (first published 1 January 1982)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 27 May 2014
- Publish Country US
- Imprint McClelland & Stewart
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 283
- Language English