Evergreen Award 2019
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9781770414006 Paperback FICTION / Literary On Sale Date:October 02, 2018$19.95 CAD 5.5 x 8.5 x 0.52 in | 0.86 lb | 224 pages Carton Quantity:48 Canadian Rights: Y ECW Press
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2023 Canada Reads Longlist Selection
National Bestseller
Winner of the 2019 OLA Forest of Reading Evergreen Award
Shortlisted for the 2019 John W. Campbell Memorial Award
Shortlisted for the 2019/20 First Nation Communities READ Indigenous Literature Award
2020 Burlington Library Selection; 2020 Hamilton Reads One Book One Community Selection; 2020 Region of Waterloo One Book One Community Selection; 2019 Ontario Library Association Ontario Together We Read Program Selection; 2019 Women’s National Book Association’s Great Group Reads; 2019 Amnesty International Book Club Pick
January 2020 Reddit r/bookclub pick of the month
“This slow-burning thriller is also a powerful story of survival and will leave readers breathless.” — Publishers Weekly
“Rice seamlessly injects Anishinaabe language into the dialogue and creates a beautiful rendering of the natural world … This title will appeal to fans of literary science-fiction akin to Cormac McCarthy as well as to readers looking for a fresh voice in indigenous fiction.” — Booklist
A daring post-apocalyptic novel from a powerful rising literary voice
With winter looming, a small northern Anishinaabe community goes dark. Cut off, people become passive and confused. Panic builds as the food supply dwindles. While the band council and a pocket of community members struggle to maintain order, an unexpected visitor arrives, escaping the crumbling society to the south. Soon after, others follow.
The community leadership loses its grip on power as the visitors manipulate the tired and hungry to take control of the reserve. Tensions rise and, as the months pass, so does the death toll due to sickness and despair. Frustrated by the building chaos, a group of young friends and their families turn to the land and Anishinaabe tradition in hopes of helping their community thrive again. Guided through the chaos by an unlikely leader named Evan Whitesky, they endeavor to restore order while grappling with a grave decision.
Blending action and allegory, Moon of the Crusted Snow upends our expectations. Out of catastrophe comes resilience. And as one society collapses, another is reborn.
Bio
Waubgeshig Rice is an author and journalist originally from Wasauksing First Nation. His first short story collection, Midnight Sweatlodge, was inspired by his experiences growing up in an Anishinaabe community and won an Independent Publishers Book Award in 2012. His debut novel, Legacy, followed in 2014. In 2014, he received the Anishinabek Nation’s Debwewin Citation for excellence in First Nation Storytelling. He now splits his time between Sudbury and Wasauksing.Marketing & Promotion
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Awards & Reviews
Awards
Evergreen Award 2019, Winner
Campbell Memorial Award 2019, Short-listed
First Nation Communities READ Indigenous Literature Award 2019, Short-listed
Reviews
“This slow-burning thriller is also a powerful story of survival and will leave readers breathless.” — Publishers Weekly
“Rice seamlessly injects Anishinaabe language into the dialogue and creates a beautiful rendering of the natural world … This title will appeal to fans of literary science fiction akin to Cormac McCarthy as well as to readers looking for a fresh voice in indigenous fiction.” — Booklist
“The creeping tension and vividly drawn landscapes make Waubgeshig Rice’s characters’ choices all the more real.” — Toronto Star
“Moon of the Crusted Snow sets itself apart — an apocalypse novel in reverse.” — Globe and Mail
“Rice complicates and demands a rethinking of the apocalyptic category itself, which is the book’s greatest revelation and strength … Rice’s writing is measured and he has a lovely ear for the cadence of conversation — humour, rage, and introspection all coming through the dialogue … Rice’s story teaches, but it’s not didactic; it’s original, and somehow takes the frenetic pace of a crisis, slows it down, and shows us its parts.” — Canadian Notes & Queries
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French Exit Patrick deWitt
9781487004835 Paperback FICTION / Literary On Sale Date:August 28, 2018$23.99 CAD 5.5 x 8.25 x 0.7 in | 0.64 lb | 248 pages Carton Quantity:51 Canadian Rights: Y House of Anansi Press-
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Finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and an international bestseller, Patrick deWitt’s brilliant and darkly comic novel is now a major motion picture starring Michelle Pfeiffer.
Frances Price — tart widow, possessive mother, and Upper East Side force of nature — is in dire straits, beset by scandal and impending bankruptcy. Her adult son Malcolm is no help, mired in a permanent state of arrested development. And then there’s the Price’s aging cat, Small Frank, who Frances believes houses the spirit of her late husband, an infamously immoral litigator and world-class cad whose gruesome tabloid death rendered Frances and Malcolm social outcasts.
Putting penury and pariahdom behind them, the family decides to cut their losses and head for the exit. One ocean voyage later, the curious trio land in their beloved Paris, the City of Light serving as a backdrop not for love or romance, but self-destruction and economic ruin — to riotous effect.
Brimming with pathos and wit, French Exit is a one-of-a-kind “tragedy of manners,” a riotous send-up of high society, as well as a moving mother and son caper which only Patrick deWitt could conceive and execute. A finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and an international bestseller upon its original publication, French Exit is now a major motion picture starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Lucas Hedges and with a script by Patrick deWitt.Bio
PATRICK DEWITT is the author of the novels French Exit (an international bestseller and a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize), The Sisters Brothers (winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction and the Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, and a finalist for the Booker Prize and the Scotiabank Giller Prize), and the critically acclaimed Undermajordomo Minor and Ablutions. Born in British Columbia, he now resides in Portland, Oregon.
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Awards & Reviews
Awards
International Bestseller 2018, Commended
Scotiabank Giller Prize 2018, Short-listed
International Dublin Literary Award 2018, Long-listed
Forest of Reading Evergreen Award 2018, Short-listed
Oregon Book Awards: Ken Kesey Award for Fiction 2018, Short-listed
A Globe and Mail Book of the Year 2018, Commended
A New York Public Library Best Book of the Year 2018, Commended
A Chatelaine Book of the Year 2018, Commended
A Now Magazine Book of the Year 2018, Commended
A Quill & Quire Book of the Year 2018, Commended
A 49th Shelf Book of the Year 2018, Commended
An Amazon.com Best Book of the Month 2018, Commended
Reviews
DeWitt’s surrealism is cheerful and matter-of-fact, making the novel feel as buoyantly insane as its characters.
A sparkling dark comedy that channels both Noel Coward’s wit and Wes Anderson’s loopy sensibility. DeWitt’s tone is breezy, droll, and blithely transgressive . . . These are people you may not want to invite to dinner, but they sure make for fun reading.
A cross between a Feydeau farce (fitting, given that the location of most of the novel is Paris) and a Buñuel film, as one after another in an eccentric cast of characters is introduced . . . DeWitt is in possession of a fresh, lively voice that surprises at every turn.
DeWitt’s particular comic genius is to evoke the darkness behind the dazzle. The novel is a brittle, unsettling delight: a fairground ride swooping above vertiginous drops, wringing out laughter and screams as it rattles towards its conclusion. Whichever style he adopts or genre he inhabits, deWitt remains a true original.
DeWitt’s particular comic genius is to evoke the darkness behind the dazzle. The novel is a brittle, unsettling delight: a fairground ride swooping above vertiginous drops, wringing out laughter and screams as it rattles towards its conclusion. Whichever style he adopts or genre he inhabits, deWitt remains a true original.
A highly enjoyable read . . . DeWitt’s style is nothing if not idiosyncratic, and his elevated language — played for particular comic effect when it comes to dialogue — is perfectly suited to affectionately chiding upper-class mores. And the tenderness between Frances, her son, and her old friend Joan is of the real stuff.
A ‘tragedy of manners’ about people out of sync in the world, this novel is disconcertingly funny. It strikes postures where a more conventional writer would have been sincere and humourless. Its subjects are effrontery, wealth, death, and bad manners. Many of the greatest novels are about nothing so very important, and they last because they are done beautifully. French Exit shows Patrick deWitt’s literary mastery and perfect ear. It’s an immaculate performance on ice, executed with sharp shining blades, lutzing and pirouetting above unknowable black depths.
Disarmingly funny … Billed as a ‘tragedy of manners,’ French Exit is deWitt’s take on a form of theatre popularized over the centuries (but dating back to the ancient Greeks) by such luminaries as Molière, Oliver Goldsmith, Oscar Wilde, and Noel Coward — with deWitt’s snappy yet droll version most closely resembling the latter two. A traditional comedy of manners employs an abundance of wit and insouciance to skewer the deplorable aspects of high society — and the prevalence of appearance over substance in particular. DeWitt’s absolute mastery over this approach is a thing of beauty: every nuance, scene, character, and snippet of dialogue is pitch perfect … French Exit includes multiple layers of meaning and social commentary, wrapped up in a whip-smart package that cracks with wit and wordplay … DeWitt proves that while The Sisters Brothers may have made his name as an author, it was far from a singular success.
[DeWitt] is a masterful storyteller who propels narrative with witty, weird vignettes and digressions.
Darkly comic, perfectly brilliant … Let deWitt take you along on this dizzying, wild ride; you’ll love every second of it, and then hop back to the beginning for another go. It’s worth the trip.
Sharply observed moments give deWitt’s well-written novel more depth than the usual comedy of manners — a depth reinforced by the exit that closes the tale, sharp object and all. Reminiscent at points of The Ginger Man but in the end a bright, original yarn with a surprising twist.French Exit satisfies with its delightful economy. Barely a word is out of place, and the dialogue is particularly arch and ironic … One hears echoes in French Exit of playwrights Noël Coward and Oscar Wilde, not to mention novelists Evelyn Waugh and Edith Wharton.
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9780735274822 Hardcover FICTION / Literary On Sale Date:August 14, 2018$27.00 CAD 5.5 x 8.2 x 1 in | 0.84 lb | 272 pages Carton Quantity:12 Canadian Rights: Y Knopf Canada-
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SHORTLISTED FOR THE ROGERS WRITERS’ TRUST FICTION PRIZE: An infectious and heartbreaking novel from “one of this country’s great kinetic writers” (Globe and Mail)—Craig Davidson’s first new literary fiction since his bestselling, Giller-shortlisted Cataract City
When neurosurgeon Jake Baker operates, he knows he’s handling more than a patient’s delicate brain tissue—he’s altering their seat of consciousness, their golden vault of memory. And memory, Jake knows well, can be a tricky thing.
When growing up in 1980s Niagara Falls, a.k.a. Cataract City—a seedy but magical, slightly haunted place—one of Jake’s closest confidantes was his uncle Calvin, a sweet but eccentric misfit enamored of occult artefacts and outlandish conspiracy theories. The summer Jake turned twelve, Calvin invited him to join the “Saturday Night Ghost Club”—a seemingly light-hearted project to investigate some of Cataract City’s more macabre urban myths. Over the course of that life-altering summer, Jake not only fell in love and began to imagine his future, he slowly, painfully came to realize that his uncle’s preoccupation with chilling legends sprang from something buried so deep in his past that Calvin himself was unaware of it.
By turns heartwarming and devastating, written with the skill and cinematic immediacy that has made Craig Davidson a star, The Saturday Night Ghost Club is a bravura performance from one of our most remarkable literary talents: a note-perfect novel that poignantly examines the fragility and resilience of mind, body and human spirit, as well as the haunting mutability of memory and story.
Story Locale: Niagara FallsBio
CRAIG DAVIDSON was born and grew up in St. Catharines, Ontario, near Niagara Falls. He has published four previous books of literary fiction: Rust and Bone, which was made into a Golden Globe-nominated feature film of the same name, The Fighter, Sarah Court, and the Scotiabank Giller Prize-nominated Cataract City. Davidson is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and his articles and journalism have been published in the National Post, Esquire, GQ, The Walrus, and The Washington Post, among other places. He lives in Toronto, Canada, with his partner and their child.
Author Residence: Toronto, ONMarketing & Promotion
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Marketing: Targeted social media advertising
Map of Cataract City for bookseller display
Publicity: - author tour in Toronto and Southern Ontario
- national review mailing
- launch event in Toronto and possible second launch in Niagara Falls
- Fall 2018 literary festivals
Author Website: craigdavidson.net -
Awards & Reviews
Awards
International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 2020, Long-listed
OLA Evergreen Award 2019, Nominated
Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize 2018, Short-listed
Reviews
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2018 ROGERS WRITERS' TRUST FICTION PRIZE
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2020 INTERNATIONAL DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD
“Davidson makes beautifully clear how the ghoulish tales we feared when we were young can’t compare to the blood-bathed teeth we eventually encounter as adults. The Saturday Night Ghost Club is a tale for those who like their Stranger Things spiked, Stand By Me charred, and who are battered enough yet still brave enough to revisit that moment when made-up horrors finally come to root in a world beyond invention. A novel that both stabs and breaks your heart.” —Mark Z. Danielewski, bestselling author of House of Leaves
“A moving, delightful, thrillingly unexpected coming-of-age story about the irresistible collision of childhood’s dark wonders and adulthood’s haunting mysteries.” —Elan Mastai, author of All Our Wrong Todays
“A nostalgia-driven coming-of-age thriller in the vein of Netflix’s hit series Stranger Things and golden-age 1980s Stephen King. Davidson writes so convincingly from a twelve-year-old boy’s perspective—vividly capturing those first pangs of love and the torture of being bullied—that it takes the puzzle of unravelling Uncle C’s troubled mind and the scalpel-sharp sections in which adult Jake describes his work as a brain surgeon to remind readers that this is, in fact, a book about the disquieting nature of memory and the stealthy ways the past can haunt someone. For sheer storytelling prowess, and the chops to scare readers screwy with monsters both real and of our own imagining, the label of Canada’s Stephen King . . . belongs to Craig Davidson, claws down.” —Stacey Madden, Quill & Quire
“A coming-of-age novel, marking the time when you realize there’s more going on in life than meets the eye. In Saturday Night, ghost stories are used to explore how resilient we are, how our mind helps us to survive, and how, sometimes, our memories help us take the horrible things that happen to us and weave them into a life that still has hope. It’s an examination, like most good literature is, of how we live our lives.” —Deborah Dundas, Toronto Star
Praise for Craig Davidson:
“Craig Davidson is one of this country’s great kinetic writers.” —Steven Beattie, The Globe and Mail
“Davidson’s remarkable storytelling gifts are several . . . [He] possesses a stealthy capacity for pace and plot exercised in a cinematic array of places . . . Superb, thoughtful and thoroughly entertaining. Davidson is a seriously talented writer.” —Noah Richler, National Post
“Davidson balances his headlong plotting with fresh, poetic language . . . bracing and poignant.” —Maclean’s
“I can’t think of another prose stylist out there as visceral and kinetic as Davidson . . . Utterly compelling.” —The Independent
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9781443453592 Paperback FICTION / Literary On Sale Date:February 13, 2018$22.99 CAD 6 x 9 x 0.64 in | 10.08 oz | 256 pages Carton Quantity:52 HarperCollins Publishers
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From the award-winning author of For Today I Am a Boy, a gripping and deeply felt novel about a group of young girls at a remote camp—and the night that will shape their lives for decades to come
A group of young girls descends on Camp Forevermore, a sleepaway camp in the Pacific Northwest, where their days are filled with swimming lessons, friendship bracelets and camp songs by the fire. Bursting with excitement and nervous energy, they set off on an overnight kayaking trip to a nearby island. But before the night is over, they find themselves stranded, with no adults to help them survive or guide them home.
The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore follows these five girls—Nita, Kayla, Isabel, Dina and Siobhan—through and beyond this fateful trip. We see the survivors through the successes and failures, loves and heartbreaks of their teen and adult years, and we come to understand how a tragedy can alter the lives it touches in innumerable ways. In diamond-sharp prose, Kim Fu gives us a portrait of friendship and of the families we build for ourselves—and the pasts we can’t escape.
Bio
KIM FU is the author of the poetry collection How Festive the Ambulance and the novel For Today I Am a Boy, which won the Edmund White Award For Debut Fiction and the Canadian Authors Emerging Writer Award, was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award and a Lambda Literary Award, and was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. The novel was also longlisted for CBC’s Canada Reads. Her essays, journalism and reviews have been published in The New York Times, the Times Literary Supplement and The Atlantic. She is the associate editor of Maisonneuve.
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Awards & Reviews
Awards
Reviews
“Stunning. Kim Fu explores the lifelong ripple effects of tragedy, writing with wit, heart and precision. A cast of characters both flawed and fascinating. I was utterly transfixed by this book.”
“The characters in Kim Fu’s dark, deftly woven fable align and disperse like planets, bound in their separate orbits to a shared, definitive moment in time. Fu traces those orbits with a master astronomer’s care and observation, mapping in clear and rich prose a hidden universe of girlhood and becoming”
Winner of the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction
Winner of the Canadian Authors Association Emerging Writer Award
New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice
PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Fiction Finalist
Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Fiction Finalist
Canada Reads Longlist
Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize Longlist
Praise for For Today I Am a Boy
“It has become cliché to hail an exciting ‘new voice’ in fiction, and many are drowned out by their own hype. [...] Kim Fu should be an exception.”
“A debut distinguished by subtlety and quiet, and one which makes you sit very still as it follows its protagonist towards a precarious happiness. You’ll be intrigued and moved.”
“A true act of mastery… [Fu’s] most remarkable achievement is in creating a quietly unforgettable character, one who is not meant to represent an ‘average’ or ‘typical’ trans life, but an individual one.”
“Expertly written and hauntingly candid. [The characters] are carefully rendered, compelling and explored through odd and sometimes unnerving details that only an artful writer can achieve.”
“Sensitively wrought . . . . Abounds in recognizable archetypes of the model minority . . . but the story itself contemplates something larger: how to define and defend one’s identity against the clamoring voices of expectation, from both family and society.”
“Fresh, poetic and superhaunting. Five stars from us.”
“Moves quickly and gracefully from moment to moment. A quiet novel, but it’s one about quiet pains.”
“For Today I Am A Boy is a tutorial in the many shades of longing… I’d wager a lot more people will know [Fu’s] name before long.”
“A vivid and haunting story of lives interrupted by tragedy. The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore maps the journey from girlhood to womanhood, radiating both nostalgia and hope.”
“Forevermore is the first truly great novel I’ve read in 2018... As intricately fashioned and as bold-hearted as books by novelists who’ve been publishing for decades.”
“These portraits of sisterhood, motherhood, daughterhood, wifehood, girlfriendhood, independent womanhood, and other female-identified-hoods sing and groan and scream with complexity and nuance, and they make me want to read her next ten books.”
“A thoroughly entertaining, complex novel full of intricate insights into human nature.”
“I loved it for its portrayal of each of the girls. . .and for showing that a single incident can colour your entire life.”
“[Fu] is a propulsive storyteller, using clear and cutting prose to move seamlessly through time… In the one-way glass of the novel, we watch the girls of Forevermore from a series of angles, in all their private anguishes. We lean closer, unable to turn away.”
“Fu offers an unblinking view of the social and emotional survival of the fittest that all too often marks the female coming of age.”
“I devoured The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore. This is a novel that contains everything anyone could ever want: heartbreak, sly humour, bear cubs, and Fu’s wise and steady hand to make sense of it all.”
“A sensitive, evocative exploration of how the past threads itself through our lives, reemerging in unexpected ways. Kim Fu skillfully measures how long and loudly one formative moment can reverberate.”
“To say this is a story of survival is too simple . . . . Fu avoids the obvious and tidy, allowing us to imagine what happens next.”
“The construction of Lost Girls makes it a standout, Fu taking readers to the edge of the plot precipice, building tension as the campers are forced to make decisions children shouldn’t have to make.”
“An ambitious and dynamic portrayal of the harm humans—even young girls—can do.”
“[A] quietly forceful debut…[with] a redemptive trajectory that feels fully earned…. Shot through with melancholy while capturing the bliss of discovering one’s sexual self.”
“Fu precisely renders the banal humiliations of childhood, the chilling steps humans take to survive, and the way time warps memory.”
“Fu’s sharp eye and the book’s specificity of place provide freshness…. Although the focus is always Peter, Fu is adept at depicting the shifting alliances between him and his sisters, and at revealing how being an outsider shapes Peter’s expectations and options.”
“Fu does an excellent job of conveying the desperation of one trapped in the wrong body as well as the confusion and frustration of that condition. . . . An interesting, thought-provoking novel.”
“In this impressive debut, Fu sensitively and poetically portrays Peter’s predicament so that readers feel his discomfort with his own body as well as his painful sense of yearning and the plight of his three sisters, who scatter in all directions to escape their unhappy home.”
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9781443453400 Paperback FICTION / Thrillers On Sale Date:March 06, 2018$22.99 CAD 6 x 9 x 1.08 in | 16.8 oz | 432 pages Carton Quantity:36 HarperCollins Publishers
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One of The Globe and Mail’s “Favourite Books of the Year”
The closer she gets to the truth, the faster it slips away.
In the spring of 1945, fifteen year-old Heike circles in the mountains high above Switzerland. Pushed out the door by a worried mother, Heike and her little sister, Lena, have escaped Dresden only days ahead of the firebombs that will destroy that city, to cross a war-torn Germany on their own. But now, Lena is lost and Heike is alone, stalked by a feral dog.
Eleven years later, Heike’s life looks very different: married to a prominent American psychiatrist, she’s living in idyllic upstate New York, where she’s free to wander the woods and care for her beloved four-year old son, Daniel. But despite the shiny veneer of this new life, Heike cannot shake the feeling that something is terribly wrong. On the sunniest day of the year, she’s relaxing by a pond with Daniel when a strange little girl appears out of nowhere—then eerily disappears below the surface of the water. From that moment on, nothing is ever the same again. Is the girl a ghost, or an omen of bad things to come? The closer Heike gets to the truth, the faster it slips away.
Bio
ELISABETH DE MARIAFFI’s debut book of short stories, How to Get Along with Women, was longlisted for the 2013 Scotiabank Giller Prize. Her poetry and short fiction have been widely published in magazines across Canada. Her first novel, The Devil You Know, was named one of the Best Books of 2015 by the Globe and Mail and the National Post. The Globe and Mail also chose her most recent novel, Hysteria, as one of the Best Books of 2018. Both books were shortlisted for the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award. Elisabeth de Mariaffi lives in St. John’s, Newfoundland, with the poet George Murray and their four children.
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Awards & Reviews
Awards
Reviews
“Hysteria is a creepy, at times terrifying, thrill ride—taut and smart, and totally unpredictable.”
“Hysteria is a powerful piece of fictional misdirection, of establishing readerly expectations and upending them, repeatedly, to tremendous effect. It is at once thought-provoking, tautly suspenseful and genuinely surprising.”
“Hysteria is shout-out-from-the-rooftops good. It is unpredictable, laced with evil and mystery, and impossible to put down. A horrifying modern-day fairy tale, Hysteria is finely written, haunting in its construction, and compelling from the first page to the last.”
“The story moves at a breakneck pace. . . . Hysteria not only provides the thrills of a suspenseful, disturbing read. On a deeper level, the novel highlights the manipulation, coercion, and abuse of women, that sadly, remains an urgent issue today.”
“The sharp and extraordinary quality of the novel comes from its taut pacing, precise detail, hallucinatory narration, and the metaphysical guessing game the reader is enticed into playing. . . . What is real? Who can we trust?”
“In Hysteria, Elisabeth de Mariaffi has crafted an epic and haunting story that manages to be both rich in character and setting and breakneck in pace. You will find yourself thinking about it long after you’ve turned the last pages.”
“…a fast-paced thrill ride with an intriguing premise and twists and turns that will keep you guessing until the end.”
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9780771039737 Hardcover BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs On Sale Date:September 18, 2018$32.00 CAD 5.8 x 8.6 x 1.1 in | 0.93 lb | 272 pages Carton Quantity:12 Canadian Rights: Y McClelland & Stewart-
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From Elizabeth Hay, one of Canada's beloved novelists, comes a startling and beautiful memoir about the drama of her parents' end, and the longer drama of being their daughter. Winner of the 2018 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonficiton.
Jean and Gordon Hay were a colourful, formidable pair. Jean, a late-blooming artist with a marvellous sense of humour, was superlatively frugal; nothing got wasted, not even maggoty soup. Gordon was a proud and ambitious schoolteacher with a terrifying temper, a deep streak of melancholy, and a devotion to flowers, cars, words, and his wife. As old age collides with the tragedy of living too long, these once ferociously independent parents become
increasingly dependent on Lizzie, the so-called difficult child. By looking after them in their final decline, she hopes to prove that she can be a good daughter after all.
In this courageous memoir, written with tough-minded candour, tenderness, and wit, Elizabeth Hay lays bare the exquisite agony of a family's dynamics--entrenched favouritism, sibling rivalries, grievances that last for decades, genuine admiration, and enduring love. In the end, she reaches a more complete understanding of the most
unforgettable characters she will ever know, the vivid giants in her life who were her parents.Bio
ELIZABETH HAY is the author of the #1 nationally bestselling novel Alone in the Classroom, the Scotiabank Giller Prize-winning novel Late Nights On Air, as well as four other highly acclaimed works of fiction, His Whole Life, A Student of Weather, Garbo Laughs, and Small Change. All Things Consoled, her first book of non-fiction, is shortlisted for the RBC Taylor Prize and the winner of the 2018 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Non-Fiction. Formerly a radio broadcaster, she spent a number of years in Mexico and New York City before returning to Canada. She lives in Ottawa.Marketing & Promotion
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Awards & Reviews
Awards
Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Non-Fiction Prize 2018, Winner
RBC Taylor Prize 2018, Long-listed
Reviews
Winner, Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction
Shortlisted for the 2019 RBC Taylor Prize
A Globe and Mail Top 100 book
A Chatelaine Best Book of 2018
"Hay's prose elevates this ordinary rite of passage—the death of one's parents—to something rare and poetic. All Things Consoled becomes, itself, a consolation for anyone desparing at the loose ends that parents leave behind. Page-after-page this is a masterclass in observation—a lesson in how meaning can emerge from grief." —2018 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction Jury Citation
"Piercingly candid and exquisitely written, Elizabeth Hay’s memoir describes the intensity of the love, uncertainty and exasperation triggered by her parents’ dying. Yet there is humour here, too, even— especially—after the final goodbyes.” —Charlotte Gray, author of The Promise of Canada
“Elizabeth Hay is a marvel. She honours her parents in this portrait of their final years. As steadfast a daughter as she is a writer, Hay writes with sometimes scalding authenticity about aging and the challenges that come with the end of a life, but she is never less than tender. I loved this moving memoir.” —Michael Redhill, author of Bellevue Square
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9781501103476 Hardcover FICTION / Thrillers On Sale Date:August 07, 2018$26.99 CAD 139.7 x 212.72 x 27.94 mm | 0.8 lb | 272 pages Carton Quantity:40 Canadian Rights: Y Simon & Schuster
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A taut, psychological mind-bender from the bestselling author of I’m Thinking of Ending Things.
We don’t get visitors. Not out here. We never have.
Junior and Hen are a quiet married couple. They live a comfortable, solitary life on their farm, far from the city lights, but in close quarters with each other. One day, a stranger from the city arrives with surprising news: Junior has been randomly selected to travel far away from the farm...very far away. The most unusual part? Arrangements have already been made so that when he leaves, Hen won’t have a chance to miss him at all, because she won’t be left alone—not even for a moment. Hen will have company. Familiar company.
Foe examines the nature of domestic relationships, self-determination, and what it means to be (or not to be) a person. An eerily entrancing page-turner, it churns with unease and suspense from the first words to its shocking finale.Bio
Iain Reid is the author of two critically acclaimed, award-winning books of nonfiction. A recipient of the prestigious RBC Taylor Emerging Writer Award, Reid has written for a variety of publications through North America, including The New Yorker. His debut novel, I’m Thinking of Ending Things, received critical acclaim. Foe is his second novel. Follow him on Twitter @Reid_Iain.Marketing & Promotion
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Awards & Reviews
Awards
Reviews
Praise for Foe
“Foe reads like a house on fire, and is almost impossible not to finish in one sitting...an otherworldly hothouse of introversion and fantasy.”
“Reid is at it again, exploiting readers with plot twists, narrative unease, and explosive conclusions in his second novel . . . [he] has the rare ability to make readers both uncomfortable and engaged, and this drama will surely send them back to the beginning pages to track the clues he left to the surprise ending.”
“Reid is a master storyteller with a knack for absorbing prose. Most of the action takes place in the microcosm of the couple’s house, but Reid writes about the relationship so well that it becomes a universe full of questions and possibilities.”
“From the opening page, you’ll have an uneasy feeling as you settle in to Iain’s Reid’s brilliant new novel, Foe. . . . A masterful and breathtakingly unique read. I can’t stop thinking about it.”
“Reid draws his suspense from the same places where we find it in our lives: not knowing what's going to happen next, not truly knowing the people we love, and not even really knowing ourselves.”
“I’m not sure that humans have hackles, but something was creeping up my spine as I read this book, and I welcomed the shivers of shock and delight. A mind-bending and genre-defying work of genius.”
“Reid proves once again that he is a master of atmosphere and suspense. Readers won’t be able to put this one down.”
“Reid builds to a deeply unsettling climax. As much a surgical dissection of what makes a marriage as an expertly paced, sparsely detailed psychological thriller, this is one to read with the lights on.”
“[Foe] is a thought-provoking thriller, the sort of book whose secrets hover just beneath the surface awaiting discovery.”
"Spare, consuming, unforgettable. Foe is a dark arrow from a truly original mind. Page by eerie page, Iain Reid pulls the known world out from under you, and leaves you trapped inside a marriage’s most haunting question: can I be replaced? This is a book that seeps into your bloodstream––and crowns Iain Reid the king of deadpan, philosophical horror."
“Foe . . . [is] one of the most unsettling novels of the year.”
“A tale of implacably mounting peril that feels all the more terrifying for being told in such a quiet, elegantly stripped-down voice. Iain Reid knows how to do ‘ominous’ as well as anyone I’ve ever read.”
“Reid is expert at evoking a sense of dread from the most ordinary objects and experiences. . . . A subtly disturbing horror novel, Foe lets the questions it raises hover, unresolved, in the reader’s mind.”
Praise for I'm Thinking of Ending Things
“An ingeniously twisted nightmare road trip through the fragile psyches of two young lovers. My kind of fun!”
“An unnerving exploration of identity, regret and longing. Delightfully frightening.”
“Generally speaking, there are two types of twists characteristic of the contemporary thriller: the twist the reader doesn’t see coming, and the twist the reader senses, but can’t quite put together on their own. The twist in I’m Thinking of Ending Things is of the latter sort, and powerfully so…. It has the sort of ending that will inspire readers to re-read the novel immediately, to try to figure out just how it was done."
“Reid has written a superbly crafted psychological thriller, with forays into the metaphysical, which promises to keep you up at night on both counts.”
“As a reader, it’s impossible to tell if you’re reading a horror story, a love story, or even perhaps a vampire story. This is a genre-twisting novel, and one that is delightfully confusing. It’s smart and it will keep readers guessing until the very end.”
“The boldest and most original literary thriller to appear in some time. . . . In addition to Cronenberg, the ghost of Stephen King hovers over these pages.”
“Touching on themes of love, isolation, mental illness and fear, this is a terrifying and totally engrossing psychological thriller.”
“An existential whodunit.”
“Reid fuses suspense with philosophy, psychology, and horror in his unsettling first novel. . . . Capped with an ending that will shock and chill, this twisty tale invites multiple readings.”
“This slim first novel packs a big psychological punch with a twisty story line and an ending that will leave readers breathless.”
“Reid’s tightly crafted tale toys with the nature of identity and comes by its terror honestly, building a wall of intricately layered psychological torment so impenetrable it's impossible to escape.”
“An addictive metaphysical investigation into the nature of identity, one which seduces and horrifies in equal measure. Reid masterfully explores the perversity of loneliness and somehow also creates a very entertaining thriller. I found myself yelling at the characters to put their feet on the pedal and drive.”
“Here are some near-certainties about I’m Thinking of Ending Things. Number One: You’re going to read it fast. Over the course of an afternoon or an evening. The momentum is unstoppable—once you start, you won’t be able to stop. And Two: once you race to the end and understand the significance of those final pages, you won’t be able to stop thinking about I’m Thinking of Ending Things. It will find a spot in your heart and head and it will live there—for days, weeks, months, or (in my case) the rest of your life. Yes. It really is that good.”
"I'm Thinking of Ending Things is haunting me long long after I've read it."
“I couldn’t put it down. It infected my dreams. A creepy and brilliant book.”
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8
I'm Afraid of Men Vivek Shraya
9780735235939 Hardcover SOCIAL SCIENCE / Gender Studies On Sale Date:August 28, 2018$17.95 CAD 4.9 x 7.13 x 0.55 in | 0.35 lb | 96 pages Carton Quantity:24 Canadian Rights: Y Penguin Canada-
Marketing Copy
Description
“Cultural rocket fuel.”—Vanity Fair
“Emotional and painful but also layered with humour, I’m Afraid of Men will widen your lens on gender and challenge you to do better. This challenge is a necessary one—one we must all take up. It is a gift to dive into Vivek’s heart and mind.”—Rupi Kaur, bestselling author of The Sun and Her Flowers and Milk and Honey
A trans artist explores how masculinity was imposed on her as a boy and continues to haunt her as a girl—and how we might reimagine gender for the twenty-first century.
Vivek Shraya has reason to be afraid. Throughout her life she’s endured acts of cruelty and aggression for being too feminine as a boy and not feminine enough as a girl. In order to survive childhood, she had to learn to convincingly perform masculinity. As an adult, she makes daily compromises to steel herself against everything from verbal attacks to heartbreak.
Now, with raw honesty, Shraya delivers an important record of the cumulative damage caused by misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia, releasing trauma from a body that has always refused to assimilate. I’m Afraid of Men is a journey from camouflage to a riot of colour and a blueprint for how we might cherish all that makes us different and conquer all that makes us afraid.Bio
VIVEK SHRAYA is an artist whose body of work crosses the boundaries of music, literature, visual art, theatre, and film. Her bestselling book I’m Afraid of Men was heralded by Vanity Fair as “cultural rocket fuel,” and her album with Queer Songbook Orchestra, Part-Time Woman, was nominated for the Polaris Music Prize. The founder of the publishing imprint VS. Books, Shraya is a six-time Lambda Literary Award finalist, a director on the board of the Tegan and Sara Foundation, and an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Calgary. She’s currently adapting her debut play, How to Fail As a Popstar, into a television pilot script with the support of CBC.
Author Residence: Calgary, Alberta
Author Hometown: Edmonton, AlbertaMarketing & Promotion
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Marketing: Postering in Toronto
Advertising with videos from Vivek
Podcast advertising
Teacher’s guide
I’m Afraid of Men merchandise (i.e. Buttons, t-shirts) in support of charity
US Plans:
Advance mailing to trade publications including Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, Booklist and Kirkus Reviews
Work with US based publicist to secure national media including NPR, The Advocate, The Millions, Vice, Buzzfeed, New York Times and the Associated Press
Unique author video content
Special merchandise for BEA and promotion (pins)
Reading Group Guide for High School Teacher
Advance mailing to YouTube influencers
Social Advertising to include Twitter & Instagram / Book Riot
Publicity: Early media interest from Quill & Quire (cover story), Toronto Life, ELLE Canada and Flare
Pitching for feature interviews and reviews in national and regional print outlets and online as well as on-air interviews for national and regional TV and radio (The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, Maclean’s, Chatelaine, CBC Arts, CBC q, The Social, The Marilyn Denis Show)
Building an extensive Fall 2018 events tour
Confirmed tour to Toronto the week of on-sale for media and events including a book launch
Early interest for events in Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver, St. Catherines thus far
Pitching for Fall literary festivals across the country; interest thus far from Victoria and Kingston with more invites to come
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Content Preview
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Awards & Reviews
Awards
Lambda Literary Award 2019, Short-listed
OLA Evergreen Award 2019, Nominated
Reviews
Finalist for the 2019 Lambda Literary Award, Transgender Nonfiction
Winner of the 2018 Alcuin Society Awards for Excellence in Book Design – Prose Non-Fiction
Named a Best Book by: The Globe and Mail, Indigo, Out Magazine, Audible, CBC, Apple, Quill & Quire, Kirkus Reviews, Brooklyn Public Library, Writers’ Trust of Canada, Autostraddle, Bitch, and BookRiot.
“Vivek Shraya transforms her long-festering fears of men into cultural rocket fuel … Shraya’s dispatches from the frontlines of life as a queer, trans woman of color are frequently illuminating, painfully honest, and, in spite of everything, hopeful.”
—Vanity Fair
“Emotional and painful but also layered with humour, I’m Afraid of Men will widen your lens on gender and challenge you to do better. This challenge is a necessary one—one we must all take up. It is a gift to dive into Vivek’s heart and mind.”
—Rupi Kaur, bestselling author of The Sun and Her Flowers and Milk and Honey
“Brilliant, funny, and deeply vulnerable, Shraya’s I'm Afraid of Men is both a moving memoir and a rallying cry for a better future. Her insights on the myriad ways the binary oppresses and denigrates are invaluable and resonant. I adore this book.”
—Jill Soloway
“In I’m Afraid of Men, Vivek Shraya owns and exposes her own history with masculinity and offers a way out of this harmful and old-fashioned binary we call gender. My head nodded along quietly in agreement any time I wasn’t wiping away rising tides of tears. Vivek Shraya is a superior voice, and this book is essential reading for everyone.”
—Tegan Quin of Tegan and Sara
“Vivek Shraya’s writing is always empathetic but challenging, kind but sharp, and I’m Afraid of Men forces you to confront what you think you know about masculinity, privilege, and fear. Reading Shraya’s writing will make you a better person, through and through.”
—Scaachi Koul, author of One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter
“Shraya crafts each of her memories in prose made poetic with touches of metaphor. She writes with honesty and vulnerability, all the while asking challenging and personal questions that inspire deeper reflection. This crucial addition to shelves offers the vital and often ignored perspective of a trans woman of color. A book to carry with you.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Anyone who has ever looked behind them when walking at night, avoided eye contact with strangers or wiped off a lipstick for being too bold—so, all of us—should read this mini-manifesto.”
—Elle Canada
“A gift and a hell of a book—beautiful, intimate, insightful, and essential.”
—Jesse Wente, NOW Magazine
“Viscerally powerful … creating tectonic fissures into antiquated beliefs around gender identity.”
—Toronto Star
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9
The Return of Kid Cooper A Novel9781948924535 Paperback FICTION / Westerns On Sale Date:October 15, 2019$15.99 CAD 139.7 x 209.55 x 20.32 mm | 0.66 lb | 288 pages Carton Quantity:28 Canadian Rights: Y Arcade Publishing-
Marketing Copy
Description
In the style of Cormac McCarthy, a gritty tale of justice and revenge in the Wild West.
The year is 1910.
Nate Cooper is an old-school cowboy. He sees the change brought by the turn of the century—horses giving way to motorcars, his girlfriend marrying his best friend, and his nemesis running for governor—and reckons none of it to be good. The west is being tamed, and with progress, some things are lost. But people? They tend to stay the same. Even after spending nearly thirty years in a Montana prison for a wrongful murder conviction, Nate's moral compass is true and unwavering: he does all the wrong things for all the right reasons.
So when he returns to his Northern Montana ranching town to find the Blackfoot Indians—the people he went to prison trying to defend—are still being cheated out of their territory by ranchers, Nate can’t rest on his laurels. With grit, determination, a quick trigger finger, and the help of the woman he used to love, Nate sets out to settle the score and force some justice in into the changing world. Before long, though, he’ll discover that justice doesn’t come cheap.
Bio
Brad Smith has worked as a farmer, signalman, insulator, truck driver, bartender, schoolteacher, maintenance mechanic, roofer, and carpenter. He is the author of nine novels, including One-Eyed Jacks, which was nominated for the Dashiell Hammett Prize, and All Hat, which became a 2007 major motion picture staring Keith Carradine. The Return of Kid Cooper is the recipient of the Western Writers of America 2019 SPUR Award for Best Traditional Novel. He lives in Dunnville, Ontario, near the north shore of Lake Erie.Marketing & Promotion
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Awards & Reviews
Awards
Reviews
**WESTERN WRITERS OF AMERICA 2019 SPUR AWARDS WINNER!**
Praise for The Return of Kid Cooper:
"The Return of Kid Cooper is Brad Smith at his best—clear-eyed, tough-minded and true of heart. Smith— once a farmer, signalman, truck driver, bartender, teacher and carpenter— understands that work will take its toll, even when it's the only thing holding a soul together. This is a powerful novel, fully felt and beautifully written." — T. Jefferson Parker, award-winning and New York Times bestselling author
"The Return of Kid Cooper is a western set in the forgotten time between horses and the sterilizing of the American West. Kid Cooper is a classic tragic hero and Brad Smith's rendering of him is full-hearted and poignant."— Dan O'Brien, author of Buffalo for the Broken Heart
"The Return of Kid Cooper can claim a secure place in the canon of literature of the American West. Brad Smith's tale of old-fashioned courage and western justice is reminiscent, in its high drama, wit, and splendid idiosyncrasy, of Lonesome Dove. I was reminded also of Annie Proulx's laconic Wyoming stories, and that most iconic of Western loners, Shane." —John Hough, Jr., author of Little Bighorn
"A tour de force. Brad Smith explores powerful universal themes while bringing to life unforgettable characters that make this book a must read. If Cormac McCarthy, Larry McMurtry, and Elmore Leonard collaborated on a book, it might sound very much like The Return of Kid Cooper." —D.B. Jackson, Winner of the Western Heritage Award, and author of Slow Moving Parts.
"From the soft click of a cue ball in a quiet saloon, to lovers on the run reuniting after thirty years, or the blast of a .44 at the final shootout, Brad Smith can really tell a story. He paints this elegiac tale of early twentieth-century Montana on a big canvas with the easy authority of Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove and the unflinching violence of Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest, pulling the Western into this new era with heartbreaking intensity, where tenderness and threat exist in every character, and on every page."— Bart Paul, author of Under Tower Peak and Cheatgrass
"Brad Smith has got the goods—he’s funny, poignant, evocative, and he tells a blistering tale. A writer to watch, a comet on the horizon."—Dennis Lehane, award-winning author of Mystic River
"Brad Smith is a writer with lots of skill, lots of heart, [and] lots of brains."—Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Empire Falls and Mohawk
“A compelling, action-packed romp through politics, romance, morality and history by author Brad Smith . . . a history buff that who reportedly count the actor Burt Reynolds among his fans."— Toronto Daily Star
“Men trapped outside their times—it was the great theme of Sam Peckinpah’s best movies, and Brad Smith makes it his own in his first-rate novel, The Return of Kid Cooper.”—True West magazine
Praise for Brad Smith
"Stellar…Wonderfully wrought characters, delicious wit, and droll storytelling make [Shoot the Dog] a delightful romp." --Publishers WeeklyStarred Review
"Smith has marvelous control of his material, effortlessly mixing laugh-out-loud comedy with streaks of country noir that call to mind Daniel Woodrell." --Booklist
"With dialogue that crackles like musket fire, Brad Smith's novel is true to Gettysburg's heroic past and madcap present, and a deliciously entertaining tale of uncivil war of the legacy of America's greatest conflict." --Tony Horwitz, author of Confederates in the Attic
"Smith has written tight, fast-paced novels his entire career…and reading one is like riding a thoroughbred."--The Chronicle Herald
"Brad Smith combines smooth writing with a twisted mind to give readers Carl Hiassen humor, but with horses instead of gators." --Julie Kramer, author of Shunning Sarah
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10
Vi Kim Thúy, Sheila Fischman
9780735272798 Hardcover FICTION / Literary On Sale Date:April 10, 2018$27.95 CAD 5.97 x 9.28 x 0.68 in | 0.67 lb | 144 pages Carton Quantity:12 Canadian Rights: Y Random House Canada-
Marketing Copy
Description
LONGLISTED FOR THE SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE: The perfect complement to the exquisitely wrought novels Ru and Mãn, Canada Reads winner Kim Thúy returns with Vi, exploring the lives, loves and struggles of Vietnamese refugees as they reinvent themselves in new lands.
The daughter of an enterprising mother and a wealthy, spoiled father who never had to grow up, Vi was the youngest of their four children and the only girl. They gave her a name that meant "precious, tiny one," destined to be cosseted and protected, the family's little treasure.
But the Vietnam War destroys life as they've known it. Vi, along with her mother and brothers, manages to escape--but her father stays behind, leaving a painful void as the rest of the family must make a new life for themselves in Canada.
While her family puts down roots, life has different plans for Vi. Taken under the wing of Hà, a worldly family friend, and her diplomat lover, Vi tests personal boundaries and crosses international ones, letting the winds of life buffet her. From Saigon to Montreal, from Suzhou to Boston to the fall of the Berlin Wall, she is witness to the immensity of geography, the intricate fabric of humanity, the complexity of love, the infinite possibilities before her. Ever the quiet observer, somehow Vi must find a way to finally take her place in the world.Bio
Born in Saigon in 1968, KIM THÚY left Vietnam with the boat people at the age of ten and settled with her family in Quebec. A graduate in translation and law, she has worked as a seamstress, interpreter, lawyer, restaurant owner, and commentator on radio and television. She lives in Montreal and devotes herself to writing.
SHEILA FISCHMAN is the award-winning translator of some 200 contemporary novels from Quebec. In 2008 she was awarded the Molson Prize in the Arts. She is a Member of the Order of Canada and a chevalier of the Ordre national du Québec. She lives in Montreal.Marketing & Promotion
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Awards & Reviews
Awards
Governor General's Literary Award - Translation 2019, Short-listed
OLA Evergreen Award 2019, Nominated
Scotiabank Giller Prize 2018, Long-listed
Reviews
FINALIST FOR THE 2019 GOVERNOR GENERAL'S LITERARY AWARD IN TRANSLATION
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2018 SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE
“Thúy is known for her short and elegant stories about being a refugee and immigrant, and the challenges of adapting to a new culture. In her novels, we experience Vietnam’s colours and tastes, the difficulties of exile but also riches, and a search for identity that we can all recognize ourselves in.” —The New Academy jury citation
“Kim Thúy’s novels are as compact as her tiny titles might suggest . . . but their poetic contents punch well above their weight in terms of story and raw emotional heft.” —Becky Toyne, The Globe and Mail
“At once highly stylized and emotionally raw, Vi is as elegant, refined. Exquisite from start to finish.” —Toronto Star
“Thúy’s fiction is wholly original. Not only does she pursue her very personal theme of the Vietnamese refugee experience, she does it in gem-like poetic prose so beautiful you want to read whole paragraphs twice.” —Susan G. Cole, NOW
“Kim Thuy’s Vi is the most beautifully written book I’ve ever read. This is the perfect book to curl up with at the end of a busy day.” —Lesley Wilkins of Blue Heron Books (Uxbridge, ON), 49th Shelf
“Thúy . . . bravely exposes the sordid reality of racism in Vietnam. . . . Vi, a fragment of the name Vincent, is another example of Thúy’s playfulness with words. In particular, Thúy studies distinctions between languages as if this scrutiny might divulge the reasons for distinctions between peoples. . . . [The] story feels freighted with history.” —Donna Bailey Nurse, Literary Review of Canada
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