Need a new book to cozy up with on the couch? That’s what Fall is for—and we know just the right place to look. Since 1994, the Scotiabank Giller Prize has highlighted the very best in Canadian fiction. Named in honour of the late literary journalist Doris Giller, it’s Canada’s richest literary prize, awarding $100,000 annually to the author of the best Canadian novel, and $10,000to each of the finalists.
One hundred and twelve titles were submitted by 73 publisher imprints from across the country—so you know the top five are going to be good. From an Arctic search for an estranged family member to a cannibalistic river otter, each of the Giller Prize shortlisted books has s0me thing distinctly Canadian to offer readers. Here a roundup of this year’s finalists:
Giller Prize Short List
Rachel Cusk for her novel Transit
From the back cover: In the wake of family collapse, a writer moves to London with her two young sons. The process of upheaval is the catalyst for a number of transitions—personal, moral, artistic, practical—as she endeavours to construct a new reality for herself and her children. In the city she is made to confront aspects of living she has, until now, avoided, and to consider questions of vulnerability and power, death and renewal, in what becomes her struggle to reattach herself to, and believe in, life.
Giller Prize Short List
Ed O’Loughlin for his novel Minds of Winter
From the back cover: In a feat of extraordinary scope and ambition, Ed O’Loughlin moves between a frozen present and an ever thawing past. Minds of Winter is a novel about ice and time and their ability to preserve or destroy, of mortality and loss and our dreams of transcending them.
Giller Prize Short List
Michael Redhill for his novel Bellevue Square
From the back cover: Jean Mason has a doppelganger. At least, that’s what people tell her. Apparently it hangs out in Kensington Market, where it sometimes buys churros and shops for hats. Jean doesn’t rattle easy, not like she used to. She’s a grown woman with a husband and two kids, as well as a thriving business, and Toronto is a fresh start for the whole family. She certainly doesn’t want to get involved in anything dubious, but still . . . why would two different strangers swear up and down they’d just seen her–with shorter hair furthermore?
Giller Prize Short List
Eden Robinson for her novel Son of a Trickster
From the back cover: Everyone knows a guy like Jared: the burnout kid in high school who sells weed cookies and has a scary mom who’s often wasted and wielding some kind of weapon. Jared does smoke and drink too much, and he does make the best cookies in town, and his mom is a mess, but he’s also a kid who has an immense capacity for compassion and an impulse to watch over people more than twice his age, and he can’t rely on anyone for consistent love and support, except for his flatulent pit bull, Baby Killer (he calls her Baby)–and now she’s dead.
Giller Prize Short List
Michelle Winters for her novel I am a Truck
From the back cover: Agathe and Réjean Lapointe are about to celebrate their twentieth wedding anniversary when Réjean’s beloved Chevy Silverado is found abandoned at the side of the road–with no trace of Réjean. As her hope dwindles, Agathe falls in with her spirited coworker, Debbie, who teaches Agathe about rock and roll, and with Martin Bureau, the one man who might know the truth about Réjean’s fate. Set against the landscape of rural Acadia, I Am a Truck is a funny and moving tale about the possibilities and impossibilities of love and loyalty.
The post 5 Canadian Novels You Should be Reading this Fall appeared first on FASHION Magazine.
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