Stoop City (ebook)

Description

A GLOBE & MAIL BEST FALL BOOK FROM AN INDEPENDENT PUBLISHERWelcome to Stoop City, where your neighbours include a condo-destroying cat, a teen queen beset by Catholic guilt, and an emergency clinic staffed entirely by lovelorn skeptics. Couples counseling with Marzana, her girlfriends ghost,mightnot be enough to resolve past indiscretions; our heroine could need a death goddess ritual or two. Plus, Hoofys not sure if his missing scam-artist boyfriend was picked up by the cops, or by that pretty blonde, their last mark. When Jan takes a room at Plague House, her first year of university takes an unexpected turninto anarcho-politics and direct action, gender studies and late-night shenanigans with Saffy, her captivating yet cagey housemate.From the lovelorn Mary Louise, who struggles with butch bachelorhood, to rural teens findingand found byadult sexualities, to Grimms The Golden Goose rendered as a jazz dance spectacle, Kristyn Dunnions freewheeling collection fosters a radical revisioning of community. Dunnion goes wherever theres a story to telland then, out of whispers and shouts, echoes and snippets, gritty realism and speculative fiction, illuminates the delicate strands that hold us all together.PRAISE FORSTOOP CITYWhat an assured and attractively variegated collection of stories. Set in Toronto and small-town southern Ontario, Kristyn Dunnions 13 short pieces are marvellous feats of pacing and styling bolstered by vibrant characterization and enviable turns of phrase.Quill & Quire(Starred Review)I want to give comparisons but there are none. No one writes like Kristyn Dunnion, not even those of us who really, really want to. These are stories that live under your skin and force new colours into the spectrum, that rip open and fold inward at the same time. You read them and wonder about the talent that allowed them to be told. Just how many lives has Dunnion lived exactly, to be able to write like this? Because you believe every word and walk beside every character. I am a long-time fan of Kristyns work and now I think I may be head-over-heels in love.Cherie Dimaline, author ofThe Marrow ThievesandEmpire of WildStoop City is a tender snarl of an album, a glorious collection of wreckage and beauty and insight. Dunnions care shines through each carefully crafted page.Casey Plett, author ofLittle FishLike her feral, tormented citizens, Dunnion swaps registers, altitudes, myths, and meanings with heartbroken elan. These stories are merciful and naked; these sentences never miss.Paige Cooper, author ofZolitudeTender and BrilliantChatelaineWhat really unitesStoop Cityis its punk ethos, the way even a well-ordered condo careens towards anarchy with the addition of one feral cat or a dead girlfriends ghost. These are stories about love at the margins, set in those spaces, literal or figurative, where the private meets the street.The Globe & MailPRAISE FOR KRISTYN DUNNIONThe Dirt Chroniclesis tough and tenderhearted, a beautifully-written literary ode to outlaw culture. Kristyn Dunnions writing is fierce and funny, a truly original book of stories I hope everyone will read.Zoe WhittallKristyn Dunnion is an utterly glorious writer. The gothic lyricism ofTarry This Nightnot only secures her a place among the rising stars of genre-bridging literary fiction, it is a declarative staking-out of narrative territory that is uniquely hers. A superb, elegant read.Michael Rowe