***2022 BMO WINTERSET AWARD – LONGLIST***
***2023 NL READS – FINALIST***
The Wards are a working-class Newfoundland family on the cusp of upheaval. The children are becoming adults, the adults are growing old, and the new dog was probably stolen. When a sudden illness forces the Wards together, can they finally learn to be close-knit?
This unsettling, at times hilarious novel explores the instability of nuclear families and the depths of dysfunction.
Family is family—you don’t get to choose.
So what, exactly, do you get to choose?
“[A] first novel, this one concerning the evocatively surnamed working-class family in present-day St. John’s. Consistently, the characters are revealed and constructed through attitudes and actions, never explicitly described. We don’t really know what they ‘look’ like, but we can see them.”