Book Descriptions

When I worked in publishing, I wrote a number of book descriptions for books covers, tip sheets, and catalogues.

Navette

by Kai Kellough

In Navette, Kaie Kellough tells a young man's story of growing up in the neighborhoods and streets of Montréal as the son of Haitian immigrants. Pulsing with the desire for movement, he shuttles through time, family, politics, music, and personal mythology to stop where one always stops: somewhere else, in the shadow of what's been left behind.

On the way, Kellough directs readers to choose their own paths, literally, because no story is ever really linear. The result is a fantastic flight that when read straight through draws one deeply to center, and when walked, awakens one's awareness to the connectivity of the universe.

Scrap Metal Sky

By Erika Brumett

In Cody County, Lux and his little girl Sadie live among rust and weeds in their scrap yard, eking out a living selling “treasure” and shuttling local drunks in Lux’s cobbled-together limousine. Haunted by the memory of Sadie’s dead mother, a junkie named Calista, Lux attempts to preserve Sadie’s innocence in a town full of people also trying to forget. In a series of vignettes, written in poetic prose, an exotic dancer and a drunk free a bird from a third-rate hotel, a fear-ridden widow steals a mannequin, and someone is breaking into people’s houses and sleeping in their beds. Unwittingly entangled in these grim lives, Lux is driven to the edge. At once tough and tender, Scrap Metal Sky is a novel about the durability of love and the good intentions often behind our bad ideas.

This Is You Here Now

By Julie Mannell

Screw rose-colored glasses! Try hot pink ones, and maybe wear a bear suit. Julie Mannell's This Is You Here Now, is beautifully vulnerable but never shy, and it's these two qualities that guide readers through a Montréal they otherwise may never have known. Traverse posh neighborhoods as a nanny, tiptoe quietly through the cathedral with your junkie lover, drink a peanut butter milkshake, and slump down in the best seats on the bus. No matter where she takes you, Mannell's x-ray vision and poignant insight will make you laugh as your heart shatters. Slightly disorienting, but life can't all be one shiny car ride.