SHORTLISTED FOR THE RELIT 2022 NOVEL AWARD

A joy ride set on a crash course with the past.

Audrey Cole has always loved to drive. Anytime, anywhere, any car: a questionable rustbucket, a family sedan, the SUV she was paid to drive around the oil fields. From the second she learned to drive, she’s always found a way to hit the road.

Years ago, when she abandoned her oil field job, she found herself chauffeuring around the Lever Men, a B-list band relegated to playing empty dive bars in far-flung towns. That’s how she found herself at the Crash Palace, an isolated lodge outside the big city where people pay to party in the wilderness.

And now, one night, while her young daughter is asleep at home, Audrey is struck by that old urge and finds herself testing the doors of parked cars in her neighbourhood. Before she knows it, she’s headed north in the dead of winter to the now abandoned Crash Palace in a stolen car, unable to stop herself from confronting her past

The Crash Palace is a funny, moving, and surprising novel by the author of the Amazon First Novel Award–nominated The Milk Chicken Bomb. Audrey is unlike any character you’ve met before, and you'll love being along for the ride.

Andrew Wedderburn is a writer and musician from Okotoks, Alberta. He graduated from the University of Calgary in 2001. His stories have been published by filling Station and Alberta Views Magazines. His debut novel, The Milk Chicken Bomb, was published by Coach House Books in 2007. In 2008 it was a finalist for the Amazon / Books in Canada First Novel Award, and long-listed for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. As a musician and songwriter Wedderburn has written, recorded and toured extensively in the groups Hot Little Rocket and Night Committee, releasing seven full-length albums over the last two decades. Andrew Wedderburn currently resides in Okotoks, AB.

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"Wedderburn’s engaging tale will hot-wire readers’ brains, making Audrey’s wanderlust palpable and contagious." –Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

“Wedderburn’s prose has an alluringly musical style [...] Wedderburn leaves it up to us to devise our stories and figure out our own answers, adding to the book’s overall charm and mystique.” –Quill & Quire

"Wedderburn’s novel The Milk Chicken Bomb, received a nod for the Amazon First Novel Award and was longlisted for the IMPAC Dublin literary award; this second novel — featuring a memorable character named Audrey Cole who goes on a road trip to The Crash Palace, where people pay to party in the wilderness — promises to be just as quirky." –Toronto Star

"The Crash Palace reads like a greatest hits album of Alberta in the 2000s." – Bruce Cinnamon, Alberta Views