Householders (trade paperback)

Description

Linked short stories about families, nascent queers, and self-deluded utopians explore the moral ordinary strangeness in their characters overlapping lives.A woman impersonates a nun online, with unexpected consequences. In a rapidly changing neighborhood, tensions escalate around two events planned for the same day. The barista girlfriend of a tech billionaire survives a zombie apocalypse only to face spending her life with the paranoid super-rich. The linked stories inHouseholdersmove effortlessly from the commonplace to the fantastic, from west-end Toronto to a trailer in the middle of nowhere, from a university campus to a state-of-the-art underground bunker; from a commune in the woods to a city and back again. Exploring the ordinary strangeness in the lives of recurring characters and overlapping dramas,Householderscombines the intimacy, precision, and clarity of short fiction with the depth and reach of a novel and mines the moral hazards inherent in all the ways we try and fail to save one another and ourselves.Praise forHouseholdersReading each story in Kate CayleysHouseholdersis like entering a household, one that is unique in its treasured secrets and hidden corners of glory and shame. The inhabitantsa trio of aging hippies, a blogger masquerading as a nun, a group of traumatized escapees from a fanatical commune, a washed-up but still brilliant musicianare all seekers after whatever good life, or good death, they can find. Having met them, the reader is left with a lingering sense of responsibility, as for worrisome old friends who are loved in spite of themselves.KD Miller, Scotiabank Giller Prize-nominated author ofLate BreakingTaut and brimming with clarity.Souvankham Thammavongsa, Scotiabank Giller Prize-winning author ofHow to Pronounce KnifeCayleys world is a dangerous place, all the structures built with discarded slivering wood and rusted nails, but one where strange sacredness arrives in the middle of the ordinary day. The mysterious reasons that push her misplaced, displaced people are as convincing as memories, painful but necessary to relive. Read these stories, youll be glad you did.Marina Endicott, author ofThe Difference