From the author of the wildly controversial books Liar and Paul's Case comes one of the most anticipated — and perhaps, in some quarters, feared — books of the year. This is author Lynn Crosbie at her most honest, most cutting, most hilarious, and most heartbreaking. The stories told here are at once a cache, a repository, of a seven-year period in the author's life; and, too, a gymnasium, a place where she can flex her prodigious wit and her dazzling stash of literary tricks
Deft with matters both low- and highbrow (here are stories about 80s big-hair bands and the lasting, theological value of the Rocky series; here, too are stories contemplating critical theory and fine art), Life Is About Losing Everything speaks with manic yet grave authority about risking and losing everything, and then sorting through the remains to discover what is beautiful, what is trash, and what, ultimately, belongs.
... an immaculate mix of humour, drama and beauty ... the book is a feral creature, full of intense love even when it bites.
... superb ... absolutely beautiful ...
Life is About Losing Everything courageously recounts an ugly side of life.
Imagine Courtney Love with the benefits of a graduate education, or Kathy Acker slightly gentled by CanLit prettiness and politesse.
Should we try to separate fact from fiction? Can we? Provocative, entertaining and poignant, Life is About Losing Everything makes us sweat for the answers.
... raw and honest ... although [Crosbie's] experiences are unique, the themes are universal.
... powerful ... Life is About Losing Everything [is] a book that is felt as much as it is read.
... focused, lucid, and darkly comic ...
... a finely carved, blood-stained shiv of a book, beautiful and brutal ...
.... brilliant ... [Crosbie] will have even the most hard-boiled reader sobbing.