Jake has fallen hard for Genny, and now he’s brought her home to meet the family. As he introduces her to Poplar Lake, he amuses her with innocent ­anecdotes about his childhood, and regales her with the story of the town’s founding and the scoundrels, bootleggers, progressives and visionaries who shaped it—all the while dodging and deflecting questions about his own past. Genny knows he’s hiding something. Does it involve his first love Tammy, or his enigmatic friend Clinton Sturgis, or his brother Victor, whom he hero-worships to this day? Whatever it is, it clearly haunts and traumatizes him and could destroy their future together. Poplar Lake is a darkly satiric novel about home towns, families and relationships, and the day-to-day lies that sustain them, a tragicomedy rich with yearning, heartbreak, and love.

Ron Thompson is a Chartered Financial Analyst and a graduate of the University of Saskatchewan, the University of Toronto, the London School of Economics, and the Humber School for Writers. Poplar Lake is his second novel, a prequel to A Person of Letters, published in 2015. He lives in Toronto.

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