Sticks Angelica, folk hero - Michael DeForge

Sticks Angelica is, in her own words, "49 years
old.
Former:
Olympian,
poet,
scholar, sculptor,
minister,
activist,
Governor General,
entrepreneur,
line
cook,
head- mistress, Mountie, columnist, libertarian, cellist." After a high-profile family scandal, Sticks escapes to the woods to live in what would be relative isolation were it not for the
many
animals
that
surround
and
in- evitably
annoy
her.
Sticks
is
an
arrogant self-obsessed force who wills herself on the flora and fauna. There is a rabbit named Oatmeal who harbors an unrequited love for
her,
a
pair
of
kissing
geese,
a
cross- dressing
moose
absurdly
named
Lisa Hanawalt. When a reporter named, ahem, Michael
DeForge
shows
up
to
interview Sticks for his biography on her, she quickly slugs him and buries him up to his neck, immobilizing him. Instead, Sticks narrates her way through the forest, recalling formative incidents from her storied past in what becomes a strange sort of autobiography. Deforge's
witty
dialogue
and deadpan narration create a bizarre yet eerily familiar world. Sticks Angelica plays with autobiography, biography, and hagiography to look at how we build our own sense of self and how others carry on the roles we create for them in our own personal dramas.