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list price: $24.95
edition:Paperback
also available: eBook
category: Fiction
published: Jul 2012
ISBN:9780887842160
publisher: House of Anansi Press Inc

People Park

by Pasha Malla

tagged: literary, thrillers
Description

Shortlisted for the Amazon.ca First Novel Award, and selected as an Amazon.ca Best Book

It's the Silver Jubilee of People Park, an urban experiment conceived by a radical mayor and zealously policed by the testosterone-powered New Fraternal League of Men. To celebrate, the insular island city has engaged the illustrationist Raven, who promises to deliver the most astonishing spectacle its residents have ever seen. As the entire island comes together for the event, we meet an unforgettable cross-section of its inhabitants, from activists to nihilists, art stars to athletes, families to inveterate loners. Soon, however, what has promised to be a triumph of civic harmony begins to reveal its shadow side. And when Raven's illustration exceeds even the most extreme of expectations, the island is plunged into a series of unnatural disasters that force people to confront what they are really made of.

People Park is a tour de force of eerily prescient, grotesque, and hilarious observation and a narrative of gripping, unrelenting suspense. Malla writes as if the twin demons of Stephen King and Flannery O'Connor were resting on his shoulders. You've never read anything quite like People Park.

About the Author

Pasha Malla is the author of a short story collection, The Withdrawal Method, three books of poems, All Our Grandfathers are GhostsWhy We Fight > Quran Neck, and Erratic Fire, Erratic Passion (with Jeff Parker), and the novels People ParkFugue States, and Kill the Mall. He lives in Hamilton, Ontario and teaches in the creative writing program at York University.

Awards
  • Commended, Amazon.ca Best Books: Editors' Picks
  • Short-listed, Amazon.ca First Novel Award
Editorial Reviews

... every sentence [is] a thrill ... [in People Park] we get a frightening picture of ourselves.

— Montreal Gazette

Written in breathless prose, it’s oddball fun, and Malla proves himself as a writer who never takes the easy way out.

— National Post

When I got to the last page, I wanted to flip the thing over and start right back at the beginning. I can’t think of a better testament to the pleasure of reading a novel.

— AV Club

People Park is a zany and entertaining yarn ... more than a worthy followup to The Withdrawal Method; it's a merry microcosm.

— Winnipeg Free Press

[People Park] unfolds a unique and fully realized fictional universe in which the author explores themes of displacement, isolation, and reunification with flashes of dark humour.

— Quill and Quire

... an imaginative feat ...

— Georgia Straight

People Park is reminiscent of Gary Shteyngart or George Saunders ... vividly imagined ...

— Globe and Mail

The novel is a cacophony of comedy and heartbreak, magical realism and satiric wit, made melodically whole through Malla’s deft prose.

— Briarpatch Magazine

People Park is an ambitious and complex novel, impressively rendered and fantastic to read.

— National Post

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