Home Schooling
by Carol Windley
ISBN 9781897151037 | 5.5" x 8.5" | TPB with French Flaps | $22.95
Categories:Fiction - Literary, Fiction - Short Stories
Purchase:Local Bookstores | mcnallyrobinson.com | archambault.ca | amazon.ca | chapters.indigo.ca
Purchase ebook:kobo | Kindle
Synopsis
Shortlisted for the 2006 Scotiabank Giller PrizeFrom the acclaimed author of Visible Light comes a collection of seven outstanding stories, each set against the rural landscape of Vancouver Island and the cities of the Pacific Northwest. In these stories the memories and dreams of characters are examined, revealing them to be both cages and keys to the cages.
The life-lessons learned by the characters are often as complicated and painful as they are illuminating. In the title story, two sisters fall in love with their math tutor on one of the Gulf Islands, inhabited equally by the ghosts of the misfits and Hollywood stars who came to live there, and the children of an alternative school, run by the girls' criminally optimistic father. In "Sand and Frost," a young girl drops out of UBC, returns home, and discovers that her domineering grandmother is the sole survivor of a shocking act of family violence. In "What Saffi Knows," a child, unable to explain to her self-involved parents, struggles with the knowledge of the whereabouts of another missing child. In these remarkable seven stories, Carol Windley creates a sense of place and of people that breathe the cool wet air of a spring morning on Gabriola Island.
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"Home Schooling ... is as delicate as it is intelligent ... nothing short of an exceptional collection of beautiful words and resonant insights. Every single story is worth reading, and once read, returned to, whether for ambience or intelligence of thought and language. Carol Windley's gift with narrative and images gives truly inspired meaning to the phrase 'creative writing'." - The Globe and Mail
"Compelling, thought-provoking, emotionally rich work ... a powerful illustration of the story-teller's art." - National Post
"Home Schooling is a beautiful collection, full of sensitivity and utterly devoid of slick sentimentality. The stories are painstakingly realistic, conveying many facets of the family experience ... Out of the ordinary comes the extraordinary. And Windley's fluid, yet precise style captures the essence of the characters and their situations with immense grace." - Vancouver Sun
