The Measure of Darkness

Durcan’s scientific background is evident in the precision of his descriptions and the depth of his analysis of the novel’s characters. And yet, the soul of a writer shines through on every page. Durcan’s evocative imagery, talents for showing the multiple facets of human struggle, and seamless narrative structure are the marks of a true artist. Rarely does a modern novel resonate so well on so many levels.

— Life in Quebec Magazine

Durcan is masterly in portraying hemispatial brain injury from a patient’s perspective. . . . [His] wry observations about the medical world are penetratingly accurate. . . . It’s a pleasure to read this sophisticated novel and mull its scalpel-sharp perceptions about what causes us to make the life decisions we do.

— Toronto Star

[Durcan’s] work at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital brings him into regular contact with neglect-afflicted patients, and in his second novel he puts what he has observed to great literary use, creating a complex, maddening and memorable protagonist whose struggle resonates well beyond his specific circumstance.

— Montreal Gazette

An evocative reminder that we are each the architects of our own lives.

— Winnipeg Free Press

Vividly rendered prose. . . . The Measure of Darkness strives to be more than an examination of what it is to have one’s ambition thwarted, and ultimately succeeds on many levels in its characterization of what it is like to not just understand, but to actually experience that subjectivity—that reality itself, is determined by nothing more than the tenuous and delicate physical tissues of one’s brain.

— Ploughshares

Encompass[es] many great issues—neglect of family relationships, aging, compassion, reconciliation, vision, aesthetics, even the stifled career of a Soviet architect—but most of all, [The Measure of Darkness is] a meditation on the limits of personal power. Slowly, quietly, inexorably, Durcan makes clear just how profound those limits are and that they are imposed both from within and without.

— Best New Fiction

Durcan cleverly uses the neurological condition that he clearly knows a lot about to demonstrate that everybody tends to neglect certain aspects of their lives, and yet they are unaware of their actions and unaware of the effect that this neglect has on other people.

— MedHum Fiction | Daily Dose: Adventures at the Intersection of Medicine and Literature

Move over Howard Roark! . . . A lifelong obsession with a Soviet architect, a lovable McGill professor, references to Montreal firms, and sharp descriptions of New York, Montreal, Expo 67, the Eastern Townships, and Detroit-in-decline will satiate [architecture] readers.

— Canadian Architect

In this beautifully written work, readers experience Martin’s caught-breath panic and, as suspense mounts, anxious concern about what Martin was really doing on the road when he was injured.

— Library Journal (starred review)

A deft exploration of the heart and mind that offers the pathos of a Sam Shepard play nested within the unreliable storytelling of Christopher Nolan’s Memento.

— Kirkus Reviews

Raises thought-provoking questions about the sometimes conflicting roles ambition, work, and loved ones play in a complex and fulfilled life.

— Booklist

An intriguing and layered medical mystery.

— Quill and Quire

The Measure of Darkness seems, at first, to be about the mysterious odyssey and follies of a man with a rare neurological syndrome in which the victim cannot perceive half of the world, and worse, doesn’t know he can’t perceive it. Yet, as Liam Durcan’s acutely observed, powerfully poetic prose—which can be sensitive or steely—builds to a gut-wrenching finale, we realize that this man is a metaphor for each of us and we are all haunted by the things we don’t know we don’t know.

— Norman Doidge, author of The Brain That Changes Itself and The Brain’s Way of Healing