From this funny, wise, and fresh new voice comes a collection of eight stories about adoption and birth, parents and children

The Real True Story is a powerful, poignant collection of thematically interwoven stories about relationships between parents and children, especially mothers and daughters. Each story explores the complex and often volatile terrain of adoption and birth. We meet young adopted women who yearn for the sense of family that blood ties bring, and mothers who struggle with the decision to give their babies up. A grown woman who was adopted tries to imagine her birth mother's life, a young girl is abducted by her father and shares a series of strange adventures with him, a teenage mother plans to give up her newborn, a pregnant wife considers abortion. Edgy, urban, bold and vibrant,The Real True Storymarks the emergence of a young writer who understands the human heart and the secret lives of ordinary people.

Elyse Gasco was born in Montreal. She received a B.A. in Creative Writing from Concordia University and an M.A. in Creative Writing from New York University. Her award-winning collection of short stories, Can You Wave Bye Bye, Baby? was published in 1999 and was the recipient of the QSPELL/FEWQ First Book Award and a finalist for the Governor General's Award for Fiction, the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, and the Danuta Gleed Literary Award.

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