New ebooks From Canadian Indies
Description
Captivating and heart-wrenching from start to finish
When Emily was a little girl, all she wanted to be when she grew up was a Full-Time Pioneer; in her Jehovah’s Witness family, the only imaginable future is a life of knocking on doors and handing out Watchtower magazines. But Emily starts to challenge her upbringing. She becomes closer to her closeted uncle, Tyler, as her older sister, Lenora, hangs out with boys, wears makeup, and gets a startling new haircut. After Lenora disappears, everything changes for Emily, and as she deals with her mental devastation she is forced to consider a different future.
Alternating between Emily’s life as a child and her adult life in the city, Watch How We Walk offers a haunting, cutting exploration of “disfellowshipping,” proselytization, and cultural abstinence, as well as the Jehovah’s Witness attitude towards the “worldlings” outside of their faith. Sparse, vivid, suspenseful, and darkly humorous, Jennifer LoveGrove’s debut novel is an emotional and visceral look inside an isolationist religion through the eyes of the unforgettable Emily.
Contributor Notes
Jennifer LoveGrove is the author of the poetry collections The Dagger Between Her Teeth and I Should Never Have Fired the Sentinel. Her writing has been published widely, and she studied creative writing at York University. She divides her time between downtown Toronto and rural Haliburton. Watch How We Walk is her first novel.
Awards
- Long-listed, Scotiabank Giller Prize
Editorial Review
“Watch How We Walk is a thoughtful, well-crafted and impressive debut, and one of my favourite reads of 2013.” — Globe and Mail
“There’s blisteringly gorgeous prose in the novel, and the first-person chapters are riveting.” — Publishers Weekly
