Secrets aren’t good for families. — from “Big Luck Island”

In The Left-Handed Dinner Party and Other Stories—a collection of new, delightful, distinctive short stories—everyone is missing something or someone; every family is riven by secrets and absences. From “The Remedy,” a tale of revenge and justice, to “The Smart Sisters,” a story of tricky family dynamics, Coulter’s narratives portray relationships, loss, and what we learn in the aftermath of death. Ghosts, echoes, memories, regrets...Coulter’s characters are haunted in many ways. With style and sweep that hints at Lynn Coady and Alice Munro, Myrl Coulter is a strong, fresh voice in contemporary Canadian fiction.

Myrl Coulter was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She has a PhD from the University of Alberta where she taught in the Department of English and Film Studies for eight years. She won a 1995 National Screen Institute Drama Prize for her short screenplay Willpower. In previous careers, Myrl has been a cashier, a blank clerk, an X-ray technician, a stay-at-home mom, a receptionist, a sales representative, a small business owner, and a stills photographer in the film industry. She has been a writer all her life. Myrl lives in Edmonton, Alberta.

Myrl Coulter's profile page

“… this collection reads a bit like a mystery novel with subtle connections between characters and stories…told intriguingly and effectively…”

Avenue Magazine

[T]he vividness of Coulter’s hard-luck characters and their situations commands attention. For the second half, Coulter changes tracks with two longer stories that experiment with tone, structure, and perspective. “The Smart Sisters” is a rollicking depiction of three struggling sisters.... “Limbo,” narrated by a “reluctant haunter”...is divided into six captivating tales that recount the decades after his death for those close to him. Gentle, comic, and uplifting, the story’s craft perfectly complements its humanity and skillfully closes this promising collection." [Full review at https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-77212-328-9]

Publishers Weekly

"What interests Coulter is families, and the endlessly paradoxical combinations of love and resentment, security and entrapment, which families offer. Some of the stories are connected by their characters, and the novella, “Limbo,” consists of a series of stories about the same family. Alcoholism, adultery, abuse, parental abandonment, trips into an uncertain future, suicide, secrecy, car crashes, sibling alienation—these are the stock-in-trade of Coulter’s families." [Full review at http://canlit.ca/article/space-and-time/]

Canadian Literature 236

# 1 on Edmonton Fiction Bestsellers list, September 24, 2017

The way Coulter uses the short story medium to loosely tie the collection together adds an enthralling quality... Coulter wanted to showcase that the things which tear us apart — depression, anger, death, suicide — are seldom talked about, or even written about... The Left-Handed Dinner Party ends on a note of fleeting happiness that alludes to a place of resolution." [Full article at https://www.thegatewayonline.ca/2018/03/left-handed-dinner-party/]

The Gateway