New ebooks From Canadian Indies

9781770899421_cover Enlarge Cover
0 of 5
0 ratings
rated!
rated!
list price: $22.99
edition:Paperback
also available: eBook
category: Fiction
published: Aug 2016
ISBN:9781770899421
publisher: House of Anansi Press Inc

The Best Kind of People

by Zoe Whittall

tagged: literary, family life
Description

A finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and a national bestseller, Zoe Whittall’s The Best Kind of People is a stunning tour de force about the unravelling of an all-American family.

George Woodbury, an affable teacher and beloved husband and father, is arrested for sexual impropriety at a prestigious prep school. His wife, Joan, vaults between denial and rage as the community she loved turns on her. Their daughter, Sadie, a popular over-achieving high school senior, becomes a social pariah. Their son, Andrew, assists in his father’s defense, while wrestling with his own unhappy memories of his teen years. A local author tries to exploit their story, while an unlikely men’s rights activist attempts to get Sadie onside their cause. With George locked up, how do the members of his family pick up the pieces and keep living their lives? How do they defend someone they love while wrestling with the possibility of his guilt?

With exquisite emotional precision, award-winning author Zoe Whittall explores issues of loyalty, truth, and the meaning of happiness through the lens of an all-American family on the brink of collapse.

About the Author

Zoe Whittall

ZOE WHITTALL is the author of the short story collection Wild Failure, and five bestselling novels includ­ing The Fake, The Spectacular, The Best Kind of People, Holding Still for as Long as Possible, and Bottle Rocket Hearts. Her previous poetry collec­tions include Pre-cordial Thump, The Emily Valentine Poems, and The Best Ten Minutes of Your Life. Her work has won a Lambda Literary Award, the Writers’ Trust Dayne Ogilvie Award, and been shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. She has worked as a TV writer on the Emmy-Award winning comedy show Schitt’s Creek and The Baroness Von Sketch Show for which she won a 2018 Canadian Screen Award. She was born in the Eastern Townships of Quebec and now lives in Prince Edward County, Ontario.


Awards
  • Short-listed, Scotiabank Giller Prize
Editorial Reviews

An astounding portrait of a character by omission.

— National Post

Whittall places the reader right at the centre of their pain. It’s the best depiction of female suffering I’ve read since Jane Smiley eloquently tackled sexual abuse in A Thousand Acres.” — Toronto Star“Nuanced to the end, Whittall’s novel achieves something that’s rare in real-life cases of sexual violence. She gives a voice to the ones we never hear from: those who are collateral damage.

— Chatelaine

Fast-paced … but never melodramatic.

— Maclean’s

Exquisitely emotional.

— Owen Sound Sun Times

Toronto author Zoe Whittall’s new novel The Best Kind of People is the best kind of book — it’s got a compelling story, characters readers will recognize and come to love, and writing that makes it effortless to turn page after page.

— Vancouver Sun

A story like this never ends… . A humane, clear eyed attempt to explore the ripple effects of sexual crime.

— Kirkus Reviews

Whittall raises her game dramatically in this Giller-shortlisted novel.

— NOW Magazine

Buy the e-book:

X
Contacting facebook
Please wait...