A Quill & Quire Book of the Year Ten years after her stunning debut, Shauna Singh Baldwin returns to Goose Lane with an outstanding new collection of ten stories. Migrating from Central America to the American South, from Metro Toronto to the Ukraine, this book features an unforgettable cast of characters. In the title story, 16-year-old Megan hates her Pakistani grandmother -- until Grandma disappears. In the enchanting magical realism of "Naina," an Indo-Canadian woman is pregnant with a baby girl who refuses to be born. "The View from the Mountain" introduces Wilson Gonzales, who makes friends with his new American boss, the aptly named Ted Grand. But following 9/11, Ted's suspicions cloud his judgment and threaten his friendship with Wilson. Each containing an entire world, these stories are marked by indelible images and unforgettable turns of phrase -- hallmarks of Baldwin's fictional world.
This is a brand new collection of short stories written by a woman who knows what it's like to live in many cultures, all at once. It's easy to get lofty when you speak of Baldwin's writing -- after all, she won a Commonwealth Writer's Prize (Canada and Caribbean) for her novel, What the Body Remembers, and was a finalist for a Giller Prize for Tiger Claw. And there's the political aspect -- the way she illuminates cultures that are becoming more complex, more hybrid, more important. But what I like best is the way she tells stories. She allows us to slide into the daily -- sometimes rowdy; sometimes ridiculous; sometimes poignant -- lives of those who are like us and those who are "other." From Fletcher the dog to "This Raghead," we are, first and foremost, entertained. Then, when we stop and think about it, we realize we also learned a thing or two.
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