This Week’s Weekend Reading Suggestion: Signs & Wonders
Why?
Alix Ohlin released both a novel (Inside) and this book of shorts via Anansi this year. While her novel was one of Canada’s best-recieved books of 2012, by media and awards, her collection, Signs and Wonders, wowed all the right readers. There are many short fiction writers and readers whose opinions I trust, and virtually all of them insisted I read this book. Hell, look at Sarah Selecky’s endorsement:
“This Collection is a Gift.” – Giller Finalist Sarah Selecky
A New York Times Editor’s Pick!
About Alix Ohlin
In a nutshell, she’s a tremendous writer, and 2012′s breakout author. Born in Montreal, now living south of the cold border, she’s the author of 4 books, and her work has appeared in Best American Short Stories, Best New American Voices, and on NPR’s “Selected Shorts.” It’s Inside she’s best known for now, since it’s been shortlsited for the Giller and the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. As well, it made many mighty lists, including: Amazon.ca Best Books: Editors’ Picks and Top 10 Canadian Fiction, as well as both The Globe’s and Quill & Quire’s Books of the Year lists.
From the Backcover:
In this brilliant new collection, Giller Prize and Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize nominee Alix Ohlin skillfully displays the full range of human emotions through the subtly powerful dramas of everyday life.
In “You Are What You Like,” a young couple finds their life derailed by the arrival of a hard-partying old friend. In “Robbing the Cradle,” Lisette does everything she can to give her husband a baby, committing an act of desperation. In “The Idea Man,” Beth, a divorcee, falls in love with a man who lies for fun. And in the incredible title story, Kathleen finds herself sitting at the hospital bedside of a man she had planned to divorce, comforted by the woman she went out of her way to hurt. These characters are divorced and beginning to date again, childless and longing for children, married and aching for more. Often unexpected and unsettling, always fascinating, Signs and Wonders showcases a young writer of remarkable range and emotional depth.
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