Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club

Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club
Author: Megan Gail Coles
Publisher: House of Anansi
Total Pages: 326
Release: 2019-02-12
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 148700172X

#1 National Bestseller Finalist, CBC Canada Reads Finalist, Scotiabank Giller Prize By turns savage, biting, funny, poetic, and heartbreaking, Megan Gail Coles’s debut novel rips into the inner lives of a wicked cast of characters, exposing class, gender, and racial tensions over the course of one Valentine’s Day in the dead of a winter storm. Valentine’s Day, the longest day of the year. A fierce blizzard is threatening to tear a strip off the city, while inside The Hazel restaurant a storm system of sex, betrayal, addiction, and hurt is breaking overhead. Iris, a young hostess, is forced to pull a double despite resolving to avoid the charming chef and his wealthy restaurateur wife. Just tables over, Damian, a hungover and self-loathing server, is trying to navigate a potential punch-up with a pair of lit customers who remain oblivious to the rising temperature in the dining room. Meanwhile Olive, a young woman far from her northern home, watches it all unfurl from the fast and frozen street. Through rolling blackouts, we glimpse the truth behind the shroud of scathing lies and unrelenting abuse, and discover that resilience proves most enduring in the dead of this winter’s tale.

Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club

Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club
Author: Megan Gail Coles
Publisher: House of Anansi Press
Total Pages: 440
Release: 2019
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9781487001711

By turns biting, funny, poetic, and heartbreaking, Megan Coles' debut novel rips into the inner lives of a wicked cast of characters, building towards a climax that will shred perceptions and force a reckoning.

Satched

Satched
Author: Megan Gail Coles
Publisher: House of Anansi
Total Pages: 153
Release: 2021-09-07
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 1487008953

Named after a local word meaning “soaked through” or “weighed down,” Scotiabank Giller Prize finalist Megan Gail Coles’s debut poetry collection, Satched, is a vivid portrait of intergenerational trauma, ecological grief, and late-stage capitalism from the perspective of a woman of rural-remote, Northern, working class, mixed ancestry. Honest, penetrating, and often darkly comic, these poems explore the extraordinary will it requires to stay alive in the face of economic precariousness, growing inequality, and prevailing dissatisfaction. With a fierce dedication to place, the collection explores the conflict inherent to individualistic priorities and collective needs present in a hyper-commodified Newfoundland and Labrador. Satched demands compassionate advocacy for all as it resolutely strives for clarity and acceptance while celebrating the momentary glimpses of joy in the path toward shared values and resilience.

Waiting for a Star to Fall

Waiting for a Star to Fall
Author: Kerry Clare
Publisher: Doubleday Canada
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2020-10-27
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0385695489

"A love story at its core, though one without an ending written in the stars. . . . Timely and insightful." --Karma Brown, #1 bestselling author of Recipe for a Perfect Wife For fans of Joanne Ramos, Josie Silver, and Emily Giffin, a gripping and powerful story that asks: Just how much are you willing to forgive in the name of love? Brooke has long been caught in the orbit of Derek, a rising political superstar. First he was her boss, then they were friends and she became his confidant, the one person he shared everything with. And even though she had feelings for him--it was hard to resist; he's charming and handsome, respected and beloved--she never dreamed he'd feel the same way. Derek is so much older and could have anyone he wanted. But it turns out that who Derek wants is Brooke, and suddenly none of the reasons they shouldn't be together matter. They fall in love. And even though Brooke has to keep the relationship a secret--stealing weekends away with him, late nights with takeout after long days at work, and business trips that are always a romantic whirlwind--being close to him and her dreams of their future make everything worth it. Then it all falls apart, and Brooke is left holding the pieces of the life they'd shared. Derek becomes embroiled in a scandal--the kind Brooke never could have imagined he'd be involved in--and she is forced to re-examine their relationship and make sense of the man she loves. Poignant, heart-stopping, and resonant, Waiting for a Star to Fall is a story about love, the things we choose to believe, and how sometimes the path to happily ever after has to start with ourselves.

Eating Habits of the Chronically Lonesome

Eating Habits of the Chronically Lonesome
Author: Megan Coles
Publisher: Breakwater Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2014
Genre: Short stories, Canadian
ISBN: 9781771030526

Eating Habits Of The Chronically Lonesome will leave you struck, yet, exhilarated. The exploration of starvation and consumption is at the core of each character; what does our hunger reveal about the state of our soft hearts? Ellen jumps rope on rooftops in the searing Korean sun. She has sworn off carbohydrates until she can find pants that fit. Damon resents his two dollar chow mein bought on a Montreal curb. There are half-eaten poutines on living room floors and greasy corn kernels stuck to chins. There are weak cocktails, cheap coffees, white plastic forks, and cigarettes. Everywhere.These interwoven stories are propulsive. They pull back the blast shield to reveal blinding interior voices; unrepentant and raw. Coles' irreverent characters scorch, and strangely comfort us, as they struggle to process the permeable nature of their thoughts. Such are the sardonically complex and humourous Eating Habits Of The Chronically Lonesome.

No Stars in the Sky

No Stars in the Sky
Author: Martha Bátiz
Publisher: House of Anansi
Total Pages: 223
Release: 2022-05-03
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1487010036

“Profoundly moving and beautifully written . . . each story is its own universe that transports the reader through the characters’ joy and pain.” — Amy Stuart The nineteen stories in No Stars in the Sky feature strong but damaged female characters in crisis. Tormented by personal conflicts and oppressive regimes that treat the female body like a trophy of war, the women in No Stars in the Sky face life-altering circumstances that either shatter or make them stronger, albeit at a very high price. True to her Latin American roots, Bátiz shines a light on the crises that concern her most: the plight of migrant children along the Mexico–U.S. border, the tragedy of the disappeared in Mexico and Argentina, and the generalized racial and domestic violence that has turned life into a constant struggle for survival. With an unflinching hand, Bátiz explores the breadth of the human condition to expose silent tragedies too often ignored.

We, Jane

We, Jane
Author: Aimee Wall
Publisher:
Total Pages: 199
Release: 2021
Genre: Abortion
ISBN: 9781771666718

"A remarkable debut about intergenerational female relationships and resistance found in the unlikeliest of places, We, Jane explores the precarity of rural existence and the essential nature of abortion. Searching for meaning in her Montreal life, Marthe begins an intense friendship with an older woman, also from Newfoundland, who tells her a story about purpose, about a duty to fulfill. It's back home, and it goes by the name of Jane. Marthe travels back to a small town on the island with the older woman to continue the work of an underground movement in 60s Chicago: abortion services performed by women, always referred to as Jane. She commits to learning how to continue this legacy and protect such essential knowledge. But the nobility of her task and the reality of small-town, rural life compete, and personal fractures in the small movement become clear. We, Jane probes the importance of care work by women for women. It underscores the complexity of relationships in close circles, and beautifully captures the inevitable heartache of understanding home. From a celebrated translator of cutting-edge fiction, this is Red Clocks meets Women Talking; a quiet, compelling novel about the magnitude of women's friendships and connection--individually and across eras."--

Every Little Piece of Me

Every Little Piece of Me
Author: Amy Jones
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Total Pages: 381
Release: 2019-06-04
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0771050690

From the bestselling author of We're All in This Together comes a novel about family, friendship, fame, and the cost of living in the public eye— because when everyone suddenly knows your name, it's easy to forget who you really are. "The first time they met, Mags saved Ava's life. The second time they met, Ava saved Mags's." Ava Hart is the most reluctant cast member of a reality TV show based on her big city family's (mostly staged) efforts to run a B&B in small-town Nova Scotia. Every family has its problems, but Ava has grown up seeing her family's every up and down broadcast on national television, after the show becomes an unexpected success for reasons that will take a heavy toll on the Harts. Mags Kovach is the charismatic lead singer of a struggling Halifax rock band hoping to be the Next Big Thing. For years she's managed to contain her demons and navigate the uglier aspects of being a woman in the music world, but after a devastating loss, she turns her anger on the only person she can: herself. As their private tragedies continue to set social media and tabloid headlines on fire, their every move subjected to an endless stream of public commentary, it will be their unexpected friendship that will save them. They will push back against the roles they've been forced to play, and take back control of something they thought they'd lost forever—the right to their own stories.

De Niro's Game

De Niro's Game
Author: Rawi Hage
Publisher: House of Anansi
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2008-06-16
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0887848133

There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. In Rawi Hage's unforgettable novel, winner of the 2008 IMPAC Prize, this famous quote by Camus becomes a touchstone for two young men caught in Lebanon's civil war. Bassam and George are childhood best friends who have grown to adulthood in war torn Beirut. Now they must choose their futures: to stay in the city and consolidate power through crime; or to go into exile abroad, alienated from the only existence they have known. Bassam chooses one path: obsessed with leaving Beirut, he embarks on a series of petty crimes to finance his departure. Meanwhile, George builds his power in the underworld of the city and embraces a life of military service, crime for profit, killing, and drugs. Told in the voice of Bassam,De Niro's Gameis a beautiful, explosive portrait of a contemporary young man shaped by a lifelong experience of war. Rawi Hage's brilliant style mimics a world gone mad: so smooth and apparently sane that its razor-sharp edges surprise and cut deeply. A powerful meditation on life and death in a war zone, and what comes after.