New ebooks From Canadian Indies

9781770414945_cover Enlarge Cover View Excerpt
0 of 5
0 ratings
rated!
rated!
list price: $22.95
edition:Paperback
also available: eBook
category: Fiction
published: Apr 2020
ISBN:9781770414945
publisher: ECW Press

Misconduct of the Heart

A Novel

by Cordelia Strube

tagged: literary, family life
Description

Toronto Book Award Winner Cordelia Strube is back with another caustic, subversive, and darkly humorous book

Stevie, a recovering alcoholic and kitchen manager of Chappy’s, a small chain restaurant, is frantically trying to prevent the people around her from going supernova: her PTSD-suffering veteran son, her uproariously demented parents, the polyglot eccentrics who work in her kitchen, the blind geriatric dog she inherits, and a damaged five-year-old who landed on her doorstep and might just be her granddaughter.

In the tight grip of new corporate owners, Stevie battles corporate’s “restructuring” to save her kitchen, while trying to learn to forgive herself and maybe allow some love back into her life. Stevie’s biting, hilarious take on her own and others’ foibles will make you cheer and will have you loving Misconduct of the Heart (in the immortal words of Stevie’s best line cook) “like never tomorrow.”

About the Author

Cordelia Strube is the author of six previous works of fiction, and has been shortlisted for such awards as the Governor-General's Award for Fiction, the Books in Canada First Novel Award, and the ReLit Award. Her biting, satirical writing and the worlds she creates in her novels have inspired some critics to adopt the term "Strubian" to describe her writing. In addition to her novels, Strube has written several plays for CBC Radio.Strube lives and writes in Toronto.

Contributor Notes

Cordelia Strube is the author of ten critically acclaimed novels. She has been nominated for the Governor General’s Award, the Trillium Book Award, and longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize.

Editorial Review

“Chappy’s is a richly drawn, darkly comic world filled with the clashing cultures of a mostly immigrant staff, an incompetent boss whose ego Stevie adroitly manipulates, and frequent equipment problems … [Stevie is] a prickly, self-aware narrator … Even as intimacy and affection slip into Stevie’s life, her gritty narration holds sentimentality at bay. Forget Canadian ‘niceness’; Strube’s angry, hard-boiled characters confront the same ugly problems found below the 48th parallel.” — Kirkus Reviews

“Cordelia Strube’s 11th novel hurtles out of the gate and never lets up … All the grief in this novel would be far too much to bear except that Strube has an absolute gift for humour. Stevie is smart, funny, and sensitive … a remarkably engaging character.” — Quill & Quire starred review

“An astringent and delightful but also harrowing and grim comedy built atop a solid block of despair … The novel’s pleasures — such as they are — come from the telling. As introspective Stevie lurches from one disaster to another (all the while racking up debt on her cards) and adds to her tally of mistakes, she’s a marvel of wittily cantankerous observations of a benighted world.” — Toronto Star

“Cordelia Strube is known for exploring dark subject matter with a keen sense of comedy. With Misconduct of the Heart, she again balances the light with the dark as she follows characters with diminished capacities to live well?—?or even to live without chronic fear. With moments of blistering humour, Strube delineates the enduring effects of violence, in the many forms it can take …While the main storyline tracks Stevie and Pierce, subplots amplify the larger themes in ways that make the novel an almost irresistible read … Strube brings her many characters and their stories to flawed and poignant life. Each is memorable.” — Literary Review of Canada

“Despite my pandemic-related personal reading failures, I was very glad and very grateful, in those difficult moments, to have a story of people surviving the worst by laughing their way through it by my side … The book is darkly funny, even heartwarming. It is real, and raw, and jarring, and frenetic, and upsetting — but it is also about people being deeply loyal, and showing up for each other … Making people laugh during times like this is a gift, and it is one that Strube’s admirable Stevie has mastered.” — Open Book

X
Contacting facebook
Please wait...