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Fiction Short Stories (single Author)

Drought & Other Stories

by (author) Jan Thornhill

Publisher
Cormorant Books
Initial publish date
Oct 2002
Category
Short Stories (single author)
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781896951263
    Publish Date
    Oct 2002
    List Price
    $18.95

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Out of print

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Description

Populated by people harbouring fixations, these stories are powerful and controlled. A woman tries to woo a taxidermist with roadkill. Another revels in auras she sees rising from the tracks of wild animals while oblivious to her own abuse of cows. One character, resentful of the thrill experienced by her criminal boyfriend when committing a break-and-entry, rearranges the contents of a stranger's refrigerator. A woman, betrayed by her husband, offers freedom to her suicidal goldfish. A mushroom-gathering woman mistakes a one-eyed bear hunter as a romantic prospect.

With an acute ear and a facility for evocative prose frequently interspersed with off-kilter humour, Thornhill writes with a remarkable clarity and compassion. Wildlife figures strongly in this collection- not surprising to anyone familiar with Thronhill's children's books- but these are gritty, "desperately beautiful" stories of deftly-created people teetering on the edge, in this first collection of her short fiction for adults.

About the author

Jan Thornhill is an author, illustrator and designer who brings her fascination with the natural world to her books for children. They include I Found a Dead Bird (National Parenting Publications Gold Award, Norma Fleck Award for Canadian Children’s Non-Fiction, Children’s Literature Roundtables of Canada Information Book Award); The Wildlife 123 (UNICEF-Ezra Jack Keats International Award for Excellence in Children’s Book Illustration, Governor General’s Award finalist); and The Wildlife ABC (Governor General’s Award finalist). Jan recently won the Vicky Metcalf Award for Literature for Young People. She spends her spare time in the woods obsessively collecting and cataloguing wild mushrooms and slime molds.

Jan Thornhill's profile page

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