LONGLISTED 2014 – Scotiabank Giller Prize From the author of Cereus Blooms at Night and Valmiki’s Daughter, both nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, comes a haunting and courageous new novel. Written in vibrant, supple prose that vividly conjures both the tropical landscape of Trinidad and the muted winter cityscape of Toronto, Moving Forward Sideways Like a Crab is a passionate eulogy to a beloved parent, and a nuanced, moving tale about the struggle to embrace the complex realities of love and family ties. Jonathan Lewis-Adey was nine when his parents, who were raising him in a tree-lined Toronto neighbourhood, separated and his mother, Sid, vanished from his life. It was not until he was a grown man, and a promising writer with two books to his name, that Jonathan finally reconnected with his beloved parent—only to find, to his shock and dismay, that the woman he’d known as “Sid” had morphed into an elegant, courtly man named Sydney. In the decade following this discovery, Jonathan made regular pilgrimages from Toronto to visit Sydney, who now lived quietly in a well-appointed retreat in his native Trinidad. And on each visit, Jonathan struggled to overcome his confusion and anger at the choices Sydney had made, trying with increasing desperation to rediscover the parent he’d once adored inside this familiar stranger. As the novel opens, Jonathan has been summoned urgently to Trinidad where Sydney, now aged and dying, seems at last to offer him the gift he longs for: a winding story that moves forward sideways as it slowly peels away the layers of Sydney’s life. But soon it becomes clear that when and where the story will end is up to Jonathan, and it is he who must decide what to do with Sydney’s haunting legacy of love, loss, and acceptance.

"This book is a haunting multi-generational novel about the shifting faces of Mala - adventurer and protector, recluse and madwoman. The plot contains sexual violence and mature themes" -- Prové de l'editor.

A novel reminiscent of the works of Herman Koch and Rachel Cusk, in which a lesbian couple attempts to escape the secrets of their pasts. “[Mootoo’s] unsettling latest examines how secrets always come back to haunt us—especially the ones we’ve managed to keep from ourselves.” —Globe & Mail, one of the 100 Favorite Books of 2020 One of Autostraddle‘s Best Queer Books of 2020 Polar Vortex is a seductive and tension-filled novel about Priya and Alex, a lesbian couple who left the big city to relocate to a bucolic countryside community. It seemed like a good way to leave their past behind and cement their newish, later-in-life relationship. But there’s leaving the past behind—and then there’s running away from awkward histories. Priya has a secret—a long-standing on-again, off-again relationship with a man, Prakash. In Priya’s mind Prakash is little more than an old friend, but in reality things are a bit complicated. Why has she never told Alex about him? Prakash has tracked Priya down in her new life, and before she realizes what she’s doing, she invites him to visit. Alex is not pleased, and soon the existing cracks in their relationship widen, revealing secrets Alex herself would have preferred to keep. Into the fissure walks Prakash, whose own agenda forces all three to face the inevitable consequences of their choices.

A quietly subversive quest novel set in eighth-century China, full of magic and poetic allusions.

In this deeply moving and life-affirming tale, a mother must nurture her five-year-old son through an unfathomable situation with only the power of their imagination and their boundless capacity to love. Written for the stage by Academy Award® nominee Emma Donoghue, this unique theatrical adaptation featuring songs and music by Kathryn Joseph and director Cora Bissett takes audiences on a richly emotional journey told through ingenious stagecraft, powerhouse performances, and heart-stopping storytelling. Room reaffirms our belief in humanity and the astounding resilience of the human spirit. This updated and revised edition was published to coincide with the Broadway premiere in Spring 2023.

An intrepid voyage out to the frontiers of the latest thinking about love, language, and family Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts is a genre-bending memoir, a work of "autotheory" offering fresh, fierce, and timely thinking about desire, identity, and the limitations and possibilities of love and language. It binds an account of Nelson's relationship with her partner and a journey to and through a pregnancy to a rigorous exploration of sexuality, gender, and "family." An insistence on radical individual freedom and the value of caretaking becomes the rallying cry for this thoughtful, unabashed, uncompromising book.

“A classic Romeo and Juliet love story” spanning decades from the World War II Caribbean to modern-day Vancouver (The Washington Post Book World). At the dawn of the Second World War on the island of Guanagaspar, Harry, the son of a widowed maid, and Rose, the daughter of his mother’s well-to-do employer, are inseparable as children. Blissfully unaware, they form a connection that knows nothing of race or class hierarchies defining their society. Then one night, after American troops occupy Guanagaspar, their deep friendship is exposed and severed. When Harry and Rose meet again in Canada years later, the gulf separating them is not so apparent. As a passion long repressed is rekindled, Rose takes it upon herself to reroute their destinies. A “transcendent tale of souls wounded by circumstance and rehabilitated by love” (Booklist, starred review), He Drown She in the Sea is a lyrical, sensuous, and suspenseful story about the origins of desire and the sacrifice and euphoria that come with defying the life one is born into. With a “narrative pacing verg[ing] on genius . . . The worlds revealed are lush and brilliant. The journey is delightful” (Edmonton Journal).

Stegner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of personal, historical, and geographic discovery Confined to a wheelchair, retired historian Lyman Ward sets out to write his grandparents' remarkable story, chronicling their days spent carving civilization into the surface of America's western frontier. But his research reveals even more about his own life than he's willing to admit. What emerges is an enthralling portrait of four generations in the life of an American family. "Cause for celebration . . . A superb novel with an amplitude of scale and richness of detail altogether uncommon in contemporary fiction." —The Atlantic Monthly "Brilliant . . . Two stories, past and present, merge to produce what important fiction must: a sense of the enchantment of life." —Los Angeles Times This Penguin Classics edition features an introduction by Jackson J. Benson. For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.