Dioramas

Dioramas by Blair Austin immerses readers into a compelling hybrid novel that is part essay, part prose poem, and part travel narrative. This book brings us face to face with our vanishing world, challenging us to consider what we preserve and at what cost.

Set in a distant future, the story follows Wiggins, a retired lecturer in a society that has undergone a great upheaval. As he navigates through a museum, Wiggins intricately describes each diorama he encounters: whales gliding above a shipwreck, an animatronic forest towering twenty stories high, urban wolves illuminated by an apartment building, and mosquitoes in uniforms and regalia, honoured as heroes from the last great war.

Through Wiggins' observations, the secrets of his world slowly unravel, revealing the conflict that nearly destroyed it and the pivotal role played by the visionary thinker, Michaux, who led the diorama revolution and is now preserved under glass.

A late-night phone call propels Wiggins on a journey to visit the Diorama of the Town, a vast dioramic world where people, taxidermied and posed, become subjects of curiosity. All his life, Wiggins has yearned to witness it. However, upon arriving, he confronts the diorama's inherent contradictions, including its legacy of political violence, manipulation by the powerful, and its fragile promise of immortality.