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Fiction Religious

Watch How We Walk

A Novel

by (author) Jennifer LoveGrove

Publisher
ECW Press
Initial publish date
Oct 2013
Category
Religious, Family Life, Literary
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781770411272
    Publish Date
    Oct 2013
    List Price
    $18.95
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781770904699
    Publish Date
    Oct 2013
    List Price
    $13.99

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Description

 

Captivating and heart-wrenching from start to finish

When Emily was a little girl, all she wanted to be when she grew up was a Full-Time Pioneer; in her Jehovah’s Witness family, the only imaginable future is a life of knocking on doors and handing out Watchtower magazines. But Emily starts to challenge her upbringing. She becomes closer to her closeted uncle, Tyler, as her older sister, Lenora, hangs out with boys, wears makeup, and gets a startling new haircut. After Lenora disappears, everything changes for Emily, and as she deals with her mental devastation she is forced to consider a different future.

Alternating between Emily’s life as a child and her adult life in the city, Watch How We Walk offers a haunting, cutting exploration of “disfellowshipping,” proselytization, and cultural abstinence, as well as the Jehovah’s Witness attitude towards the “worldlings” outside of their faith. Sparse, vivid, suspenseful, and darkly humorous, Jennifer LoveGrove’s debut novel is an emotional and visceral look inside an isolationist religion through the eyes of the unforgettable Emily.

 

About the author

Jennifer LoveGrove is the author of the Giller Prize–longlisted novel Watch How We Walk, as well as two poetry collections: I Should Never Have Fired the Sentinel and The Dagger Between Her Teeth. In 2010, LoveGrove was nominated for the K.M. Hunter Artist Award for Literature and in 2015, her poetry was shortlisted for the Lit POP Awards. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications across North America. She divides her time between downtown Toronto and rural Ontario.

Jennifer LoveGrove's profile page

Awards

  • Long-listed, Scotiabank Giller Prize

Editorial Reviews

 

Watch How We Walk is a thoughtful, well-crafted and impressive debut, and one of my favourite reads of 2013.” — Globe and Mail

“There’s blisteringly gorgeous prose in the novel, and the first-person chapters are riveting.” — Publishers Weekly

 

User Reviews

Loved it!

The thing about Watch How We Walk is that it just get better as you read. The first chapter left me thinking it was good, but nothing too special. But as all the pieces start to fall together and the subtleties glide to the forefront it wallops you in a really great way. There are so many stunning scenes in the later part for the novel that I literally shut the door and told my family to leave me alone. I read the novel in less that 24 hours and loved just about every second of it. Lovegrove does a great job at exploring the complexities of life through the lens of a pre-adolescent.

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