Whitetail Shooting Gallery
by Annette LaPointe
Whitetail Shooting Gallery, a new novel from award-winning author and Giller Prize nominee, Annette Lapointe,is set in the outer urban, often desolate, landscape of the Saskatchewan prairie. Cousins Jennifer and Jason live close together as small kids, exploring their rural home. They live in adjacent, sometimes overlapping, households. But one act of family violence begets another, and the cousins drift apart. By adolescence, the two are estranged. Jennifer grows closer to her best friend, Donna, an evangelical minister’s daughter who rebels against her family by immersing her- self in a world of vectors, fractals, perfect math, and porn. Jason’s world is hockey. Donna likes his street-hockey bruises. Jason’s also interested in Gordon, a semi-recluse ex-teacher who lives on the periphery of town and con- structs art installations from leather, tamarack, animal skulls, and other found items. Horses, bears, kissing cousins, and other human animals conspire in a series of conflicts that result in accidental gunfire and scarring—both physical and emotional—that take many years to heal.
close this panelAnnette Lapointe holds a PhD in Contemporary Canadian Literature and teaches literature and gender studies at the Universities of Winnipeg and Manitoba. Her first novel, 'Stolen', was nominated for a Giller Prize and was the Winner of two Saskatchewan Book Awards (First Book Award and Saskatoon Book Award). A Finalist for the Books in Canada First Novel Award, as well as being cited as a Globe & Mail Top 5 First Fiction choice, 'Stolen' also garnered Ms. Lapointe a Canadian Authors Association-BookTV Emerging Writer award. Annette has lived in Saskatoon, Quebec City, St John's, South Korea, and currently resides in Winnipeg. Much of the first draft of 'Whitetail Shooting Gallery' was written in a fried chicken joint in Jinju, South Korea.
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