Red Girl Rat Boy

Description

AQuill & QuireBest Book of the YearAGlobe & MailBest Short Fiction TitleANational PostBest Short Fiction TitleAJanuary MagazineBest Book of the YearShortlisted for the 2014 Ethel Wilson Fiction PrizeLonglisted for the 2014 Frank OConnor AwardComplicated, passionate, genuine.ChatelaineWomen. Young women, old women. The hair-obsessed, the politically driven, the sure-footed, the bony-butted, the awkward and compulsive and alone. Sleep-deprived and testy. Exhausted and accepting. Among the innumerable wives, husbands, sisters, and in-laws vexed by short temper and insecurity throughout this short story collection, Cynthia Floods protagonists stand out as citizens of a reality that the rest of the world will only partially understand. New from the Journey Prize-winning author,Red Girl Rat Boyis a collection of astonishing range and assured technique, whose voicesgothic, peculiar, domestic, and strangeremain as passionate and complex as ever.Praise forRed Girl Rat BoyRevenge and politics season this potent and passionate collection of stories. Flood excavates indelible histories that haunt even those whove shaken the dust of the past. Aritha van Herk, author ofJudithFloods eye is unflinching, her language energetic and precise, her vision bracing, passionate and entirely lacking in sentimentality.Nancy Richler, author ofThe Imposter BrideThe notary in Dirty Work has retired from witnessing how rough human existence is. Fortunately for us, Cynthia Flood has not these stories prove her to be among our great North American fiction writers.Betsy Warland, author ofBreathing the Page: Reading the Act of WritingRaw energy is Cynthia Floods territory. This is a superb collection.Laurie Lewis, author ofLittle ComradesCynthia Flood is full of surprises. If theres one thing that characterizes her elegant, crystal-sharp short stories, its that element of surprise they reward the attentive reader with surprise and delightDave Margoshes, author ofA Book of Great WorthInRed Girl Rat BoyCynthia Flood has pared her style down to a clipped staccato that is at first jarring, then mesmerizing. How does she scrape the narrative so close to the bone, yet still manage to emotionally engage the reader? Because shes a master, carefully maximizing the potential of each word poetry.Caroline Adderson,The Globe & MailFlood is a highly accomplished stylist, whose technique is tightly calibrated and precise Anything superfluous is ruthlessly pared away The stories inRed Girl Rat Boyare brief, but dense, requiring concentration and attention [yet are] as emotionally engaging as any flat-out storyteller.The National PostFlood challenges, enlightens, disturbs a stunning fifth book.The Vancouver SunAs we have come to expect, Floods stories reward attentive reading. Realism is the dominant technique, but there are also quirks that bend the readers ear and excite. Carol Shields used to talk about female storytelling that avoided the classic duality of climax and release. Floods stories are Shields-type stories: multi-orgasmic. Ahem.Quill & QuireThe Journey Prize-winning author packs a lot [of] power into 11 taut stories that celebrate and challenge women of all types. Flood is unflinching, but her readers might not be so brave. The author is honest to the point of occasional emotional and unsentimental brutality. This is amazing stuff.January MagazineWith the agility of an acrobat, Flood navigates shifts and turns within time, often lifetimes, while employing a free indirect style that catapults the reader from a characters most immediate experience to retrospective narration and then back again These stories are told in a voice that navigates like an underground stream through the deepest channels of the psyche. These stories are felt in the marrow.The Coastal SpectatorDiverse and peculiar, elliptical and compressed, with no linkage between them other than the spare, sure skill of the writer Flood is a master of doing more with less. There are no wasted words, yet each story has a huge expanse and a high ceiling Flood, in scant and careful images, places us in stories that require us to see and to think about perspective, about where we are situated, what it is we see, and what to make of it.The Malahat ReviewA unique breed of confident, highly stylized writing Creative writing courses would benefit from studying why she does what she does Floods stories are also commendable for covering much emotional ground and character history in very little space.The Telegraph-JournalDo not search for a grand overarching theme in this collection of short stories by the prize-winning Canadian author. Flood freely experiments with a style she describes as elliptical, compressed, imagistic and features protagonists who are flawed, varied, and enticingly only partially relatable.Toronto Review of BooksA strong collection from a Journey Prize winner who knows how short stories ought to work.Salty InkFloods narratives know no bounds her stories break through barriers, surprise at turns Flood herself is the hunter shooting right between the eyes.Pickle Me ThisCompulsively readable.CultMontreal