A GLOBE AND MAIL BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
A suspenseful and poignant tale from an award-winning writer about a girl navigating chaotic family life in a close-knit small town.
On a June afternoon in a small city, a wild-eyed girl named Francie dashes down a neighbourhood street, clutching a gun. She doesn’t know exactly what she’s running from, and she doesn’t know what she’s heading towards. All she understands is the need to survive. To save herself, she has no choice but to run—and to save those she loves, she must hold tight to that gun.
Swirling around Francie is a chorus of friends, family, and neighbours, each person with a different view of her. As we hear from these voices—Francie’s steadfast best friend, Alice; Alice’s comically unaware mother, Sally, and struggling mathematician father, David; Francie’s distressed and distracted mother, Marietta, and troubled, unwell father, Luce—a fractured portrait emerges of the girl and the village surrounding her. And at last we arrive at a still point in the chaos: a tall tree where Francie takes shelter, and where the meaning of her flight—for herself, and for the people around her—becomes clear.
In Francie’s Got a Gun, award-winning writer Carrie Snyder assembles a chorus of unforgettable characters who are both well-intentioned and flawed. At their centre is Francie, a vulnerable, imaginative girl with surprising attachments to each of them. Here is a propulsive, polyphonic, heart-expanding novel—equal parts sorrow and humour, fear and love, anger and kindness—about social breakdown and the quest for connection in a close-knit community.
CARRIE SNYDER is an award-winning Canadian writer who has published three books of literary fiction and two books for children. Her most recent, bestselling novel, Girl Runner, was a finalist for the Writers’ Trust Prize and published in twelve countries. Her novel-in-stories, The Juliet Stories, was a finalist for the 2012 Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction. She is a consulting editor for The New Quarterly magazine and publishes an award-winning literary blog, Obscure CanLit Mama. Carrie Snyder lives in Waterloo, Ontario.
“I loved every character in Carrie Snyder’s compelling new novel, Francie’s Got a Gun. In beautiful prose, Snyder unfurls Francie’s story through a chorus of perspectives, illuminating the hopes, flaws, disappointments, small preferences and large ambitions within a community. Together these voices propel the narrative toward a devastating, beautiful, and pitch-perfect conclusion. Carrie Snyder has pulled off a magic trick with this novel—it is a literary feat.” —Emily Urquhart, bestselling author of Beyond the Pale
“At once tense and tragic, sweet and tender . . . [Francie’s Got a Gun] is a strong, complex novel, with a myriad of layers that elevate [it] to a timeless novel.” —The Miramichi Reader
“An exquisitely crafted, deeply imagined novel . . . unfolds with the sure-footedness of an elite runner.” —Cathy Marie Buchanan, author of The Painted Girls, on Girl Runner
“Francie’s Got a Gun is a tender, pulsating novel about a girl and a supporting cast of characters drawn with such complexity and rawness you feel as though you are inhabiting not only their worlds but their living, breathing bodies. Carrie Snyder has—by some miracle—succeeded in writing a novel that has its own heartbeat.” —Tasneem Jamal, author of Where the Air is Sweet
“Extraordinary, accomplished . . . a wonderful story of a free spirit forced to make difficult choices . . . grabbed my hand on page one and never let go.” —Sara Gruen, author of Water for Elephants, on Girl Runner
“Doesn’t let you go until the very last page . . . this original and moving story . . . has something of the quirky charm of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry.” —Daily Mail on Girl Runner
“Fans of The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver . . . will love this.” —Chatelaine on The Juliet Stories