WITH A FOREWORD BY ARITHA VAN HERK.

It's the mid 1890s in Kamloops, British Columbia. Two men argue over a bottle of whisky and, in the struggle Frank Spencer, an American outlaw-turned-farmhand, kills Pete Foster, a French-Canadian and fellow farmhand. Enter Caprice: a vision and a brain. Almost six feet tall, with flaming red hair and long legs, and toting a lethal bullwhip, she sets out to avenge her brother's murder. Travelling with her beloved black Spanish stallion, Caprice trails her brother's murderer to Mexico and back. Determined and headstrong as she is smart, she leaves an impression on the people she encounters in her journey: Gert, the whore with a heart of gold; Gert's son, for whom she provides affirmation, and not the least Frank Smith, her lover, a teacher and amateur baseball player who wants her to leave the law enforcement to the professionals and marry him. Caprice finally comes face to face with her brother's murderer at Deadman's Falls. First published in 1987 and based on actual events in BC's history, Caprice is a witty, adventurous and colourful recreation of a Canadian heroine's quest in avenging her brother's murder, a woman well ahead of her times, who refused to be pigeonholed into a stereotype, who questioned authority and did so with unflinching resolve. Caprice is a companion to Bowering's Burning Water and Shoot!, reissued by New Star in 2007 and 2008.

George Bowering, Canada’s first Poet Laureate, was born in the Okanagan Valley.After serving as an aerial photographer in the Royal Canadian Air Force, Bowering earned a BA in English and an MA in history at the University of British Columbia, where he became one of the co-founders of the avant-garde poetry magazine TISH. He has taught literature at the University of Calgary, the University of Western Ontario, and Simon Fraser University, and he continues to act as a Canadian literary ambassador at international conferences and readings.A distinguished novelist, poet, editor, professor, historian, and tireless supporter of fellow writers, Bowering has authored more than eighty books, including works of poetry, fiction, autobiography, biography, and youth fiction. His writing has been translated into French, Spanish, Italian, German, Chinese, and Romanian.Talon has published Bowering’s Taking Measures, a collection of serial poems.Bowering has twice won the Governor General’s Award, Canada’s top literary prize.

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