Shimmer

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http://.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/00_BO009_SHIMMER_SAMPLE.mp3Nominated for the 2023 ReLit Award for Short FictionIn ten vividly told stories,Shimmerfollows characters through relationships, within social norms, and across boundaries of all kinds as they shimmer into and out of each others lives.Outside a 7-Eleven, teen boys Veeper and Wendell try to decide what to do with their night, though the thought of the rest of their lives doesnt seem to have occurred to them. In Laurel Canyon, two movie stars try to decide if the affair theyre having might mean they like each other. When Byron, trying to figure out the chords of a song he likes, posts a question on a guitar website, he ends up meeting Jessica as well, a woman with her own difficult music. And when the snide and sharp-tongued Twyla agrees to try therapy, not even she would have imagined the results.Audiobook read by Alex Pugsley and Fiona HighetPraise forShimmerLooking atShimmeras a whole, one is struck by Pugsleys mastery of the short-story form, his ability to distil entire lives worth of meaning into a few short pages. Hes not just a writer to watch: hes a writer to savour.Robert Wiersema,Toronto StarHis greatest gift as a writer is, I believe, his ability to carry dialogue . . . a brave departure from the highly-praisedAubrey McKee.Miramichi ReaderPugsley brings out the confusion of life well. No one is in control. Everyone has doubts about themselves and others. His ability to show the twists and turns of our constant, anxious questioning of ourselves makes each story revelatory in a different way. A truly impressive collection!Ottawa Review of Books[Pugsleys] story proves that the digital mode of communication, while frequently castigated as impersonal and dehumanizing, can, in the right hands, carry with it strong emotional resonance.Steven Beattie,That Shakespearean RagPugsley excels at putting life on the page, mainly because he uses a profusion of concrete details. He out-Dickens Dickens. And it works.Maple Tree Literary SupplementAlex PugsleysShimmer(2022) offers a character for every reading mood . . . poignant and moving.Buried in PrintAlex Pugsley is one of our greatest living writers. He is like a Canadian James Joyce, only if James Joyce grew up hanging out in the parking lots of rundown 7-Elevens and . . . on the grimy floors of divey rock & roll clubs.The Colorado SunPraise for Alex PugsleyAubrey McKeeis no austere, white-walled art gallery of a novel. Its abundant, highly decorated, and unafraid of extravagance, of stylistic excess . . . From ordinary incidentsa childhood acquaintance, marital strife, a weddingas well as a few extraordinary ones,Aubrey McKeebuilds a dazzling and complicated world, a childhood in Halifax as a vibrant universe in itself. While Pugsleys literary performance is an immediate delight, the portrait of the early days of a wayward oddity lingers long after.Toronto StarEvoking comparisons in both style and substance to the work of John Irving and Robertson Davies in its assemblage of perceptive, richly detailed character studies . . . The life of a Canadian city is revealed with verve and insight.Kirkus ReviewsAlthough many peoples stories comprise the whole ofAubrey McKee, the city of Halifax is also a feature character . . . the reverence Pugsley provides about Halifax will resonate with anyone thinking about their own hometown, no matter its size or location . . . The richly defined personalities inAubrey McKeeare void of pretense or judgment and are, at once, knowable. Like a favourite song, its the hook that makes the adventures ofAubrey McKeeand those he cares about so memorable.Winnipeg Free PressPugsley, equal parts poet and meticulous historian of his own private Halifax, has accomplished, withAubrey McKee,a work of high literary art, remaking and claiming the city as his own once again in a sustained performance that pulses with that deep, radical love.John Delacourt,The Ottawa Review of BooksThe mesmerizing, kaleidoscopic Halifax depicted inAubrey McKeeis as enchanted as it is benighted, an adolescent fever-dream. This is a rollicking, strange and unforgettable coming of age novel unlike anything youve ever read.Lynn Coady, Scotiabank Giller Prize-winning author ofHellgoingHis prose style is among the finest anywhere: humorous, economical, deft without sacrificing accessibility, capable of laying bare the complicated depths, the tenderness, and the strangeness of personal relationships.Roo Borson, Griffin Poetry Prize-winning author ofShort Journey Upriver Toward OishidaAlex Pugsleys novel,Aubrey McKee, is a whip-smart portrait of the artist at the end of the twentieth century. Funny and wildly intelligent, it captures a somewhat tragic cohort of young, ambitious Haligonians trying to become themselves, all seen through the eyes of the narrator, a young man of incomplete wisdom. In quicksilver prose, Pugsley shows us a whole generation, some of whom are lost, some found, but all viewed with a profound, comic humanity.Michael Redhill, Scotiabank Giller Prize-winning author ofBellevue SquareA wonderful book, it absolutely floored me. Its been a very long time since Ive read anything like it . . . I foundAubrey McKeeto be more reminiscent of Dubliners by James Joyce, not only because the sense of place is so strong, but because the narrative in this book is told through interconnected stories.Bookin