Here the Dark

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SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2020 SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZEANEW YORK TIMESNEW & NOTEWORTHY BOOKAGLOBE AND MAILGLOBE 100 BOOKA CBC BEST FICTION BOOK OF 2020From the streets of Danang, Vietnam, where a boy falls in with a young American missionary, to fishermen lost on the islands of Honduras, to the Canadian prairies, where an aging rancher finds himself smitten and a teenage boys infatuation reveals his naivet, the short stories inHere the Darkchronicle the geographies of both place and heart. Featuring a novella about a young woman torn between faith and doubt in a cloistered Mennonite community, David Bergens latest deftly renders complex moral ambiguities and asks what it means to be lostand how, through grace, we can be found.Praise forHere the DarkSexual loneliness and moral confusion pull at the delicately wrought characters in David Bergens latest work, a story collection of masterly skill and tension. His third appearance on the Giller shortlistincluding the 2005 winner,The Time in Betweenaffirms Bergen among Canadas most powerful writers. His pages light up; all around falls into darkness.2020 Scotiabank Giller Prize JuryStriking.New York Times Book ReviewBergens style is taut, devoid of overblown writerly prose He brings to mind Ernest Hemingway A masterclass in fine writing.Toronto StarGripping Here the Darkhighlight[s] the nuance in every decision; more often than not, no right choice is offered. Its love not faith that saves.Winnipeg Free PressBergens prose is always tight and clear, but in his novella it takes on an eerie quality; the story is both immediate and dreamlike Lily never feels less than real. In the hands of a less skilled author, her character uneducated, religious, sexually frustrated might fall into trope territory, but Bergen never lets that happen.Quill & QuireLulled by confident and poetic prose, the reader could be fooled into missing the nuance of Bergens writing: it lives in the detail, the gesture, the words spoken and how theyre received It is a refined stream-of-consciousness, turned cinematically outward, often to naturehuman or otherwise. The turns are so carefully done we dont realize we are on the precipice of action until the ground falls out from under us, opening the stories up, like the crumbling earth, to a new equilibrium It is for all the questions, lingering and gathering force, that I will be continuing to pick up this outstanding collection.Malahat ReviewA wondrous experience Because Bergen is such an astute and generous writer he has been able to give Lily the precious gift of a full and rich character and it will be a long time before I forget her.Guelph TodayBergen translates the mundane into an ethical battleground of giant proportions, one not perhaps beyond the reach of human understanding but challenging, and well within the experience of human lives The apparent simplicity of Bergens prose voices a sensibility at once affirmative and sad, male in its perspective, elliptical in its hope, and in its dark implications intensely troubling.Ormsby ReviewPraise for David BergenDavid Bergens command is breathtaking, andStrangeris a work of genius. There is not one sentence out of place in this book, not one missed stitch. This is a novel with the tension ofThe Roadand the moral heft ofThe Power and the Glory. His work belongs to the world, and to all time. He is one of our living greats.Matthew Thomas,New York Times-bestselling author ofWe Are Not OurselvesThe gorgeous lyricism of David Bergens latest novel recalls the atmosphere of HemingwaysThe Old Man and the Sea.MacleansStrangeris an engrossing human exploration of displacement and inequality. . . Bergen paints a dire reality that isnt far off from the current state of affairs in the United States.Strangerfeels like a caution, warning of the dangers of continued disunity and the growing rift from inequality.Toronto StarInventive and electrifying. . . Skilled and gutsy. . . Brilliant and utterly convincing. . . [Stranger] reminds us that even in the best-known stories, something unexpected is always lurking, if you go deep enough.Globe & MailDavid Bergen has written arguably his best novel. . . The book manages the rare feat of being profound and important but at the same time absolutely gripping.Quill & QuireAt once grand and intimate,Strangeris an epic story with a very human heart.Rachel Giese,Chatelaine