New ebooks From Canadian Indies
Description
Finalist for the 2020 Western Canada Jewish Book Awards, The Nancy Richler Memorial Prize for Fiction
Finalist for the 2020 Kobzar Book Award
Finalist for the 2019 Ethel Wilson Fiction Award
We All Need to Eat is a new collection of linked stories from award-winning author Alex Leslie that revolve around Soma, a young Queer woman in Vancouver, chronicling her attempts to come to grips with herself, her family and her sexuality.
Set in different moments falling between Soma's childhood and her late thirties, each story--bold and varying in its approach to narrative--presents a sea change in Soma's life, from Soma becoming addicted to weightlifting while going through a break-up in her thirties; to her complex relationship with her younger brother after she leaves home revealed over the course of a long family chicken dinner; to Soma's struggles to cope with her mother's increasing instability by becoming fixated on buying her a lamp for seasonal affective disorder; and the far-reaching impact and lasting reverberations of Soma's family's experience of the Holocaust as it scrapes up against the rise of Alt Right media. Lyrical, gritty and atmospheric, Soma's stories refuse to shy away from the contradictions inherent to human experience, exploring one young person's journey through mourning, escapism, and the search for nourishment.
Contributor Notes
Alex Leslie was born and lives in Vancouver. She is the author of two short story collections, We All Need to Eat, a finalist for the 2019 Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, the 2020 Nancy Richler Memorial Prize for Fiction, and the 2020 Kobzar Award, and People Who Disappear, a finalist for the 2013 Lambda Literary Award for Debut Fiction and the 2013 ReLit Award for Short Fiction. She is also the author of two prose poetry collections, Vancouver for Beginners, winner of the 2020 Lohn Foundation Prize for Poetry, and The things I heard about you, which was shortlisted for the 2014 Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry. Alex’s writing has been included in the Journey Prize Anthology, The Best of Canadian Poetry in English, and in a special issue of Granta spotlighting Canadian writing, co-edited by Madeleine Thien and Catherine Leroux. She has received a CBC Literary Award, a Gold National Magazine Award, and the 2015 Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ2S+ Emerging Writers from the Writers' Trust of Canada.
Awards
- Short-listed, The Western Canada Jewish Book Awards: The Nancy Richler Memorial Prize for Fiction
- Short-listed, Kobzar Book Award
- Short-listed, Ethel Wilson Fiction Award
Editorial Review
“We All Need to Eat is a stunning inquiry into the sharpness of the world as it collides with the fragility—the ambiguities and possibilities—of the self. Alex Leslie a tremendously gifted and compassionate writer. This bold and searing collection is a wonder.” —Madeleine Thien, Scotiabank Giller Prize winning author of Do Not Say We Have Nothing.
“Leslie’s surprising juxtapositions, strong and deftly deployed metaphors, and dynamic sentence structures create dense emotional landscapes tied to a well-developed sense of time and place. From those landscapes, a rich, subtle portrait of Soma emerges and then evolves as the stories expose more facets of her life.” —Quill and Quire
“Alex Leslie has written a refreshing set of interlocking narratives about family and heartache. A far cry from the self-discovery credos of the millennial age, her protagonist Soma ruminates and broods. And with Soma’s painfully careful and wonderfully-crafted considerations, the reader might also weigh the many small, trying moments that connect us to chosen and blood family.” —Amber Dawn, author of Sodom Road Exit
“There’s plenty to say about We All Need To Eat, all of it good. In her second story collection Vancouver’s Alex Leslie has created a thematically rich and sophisticated portrait of an individual and her entwined networks—family, friends, lovers.”— Toronto Star
“Since the election of Donald Trump, many of us have considered the Holocaust in light of increased displays of outright anti-Semitism and white nationalism—only more so after the attack on the Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue in October. This afterimage is the setting of Alex Leslie’s linked stories in We All Need to Eat.” —The Globe and Mail
