Winner of the 2023 City of Victoria Butler Book Prize

An outrageously comic novel documents a middle-aged writer and mother's grappling with mid-life crisis—her husband's and her own.

Preoccupied with her fledgling literary career, intent on the all-consuming consolations of philosophy, and scrambling to meet the demands of her four children, the acutely myopic and chronically inattentive Vita Glass doesn’t notice that her house and her marriage are competing to see which can fall apart fastest. She can barely find time for her writing career, and just when her newfound success in vegetable erotica is beginning to take off. Our heroine’s only tried and trusted escape is the blissful detachment of Keith's hairdressing salon, but when her husband leaves the country, unannounced, she decides to do likewise—in the opposite direction, and with their children. Drawn from the pages of Vita’s journal, this outrageously comic novel documents Vita's passage through a mid-life crisis and explores all the ways we deceive each other and ourselves.

Born in England, Pauline Holdstock came to Canada in 1974. Her first novel, The Blackbird's Song, was a finalist in the WH Smith/Books in Canada First Novel Award in 1987. Her 2004 novel Beyond Measure was nominated for the Giller Prize. Her writing has appeared in Exile, Event, Grain, NeWest Review, Malahat Review, Flare and Antigonish Review among others. She lives in Sidney on Vancouver Island.

Pauline Holdstock's profile page

• Winner, City of Victoria Butler Book Prize

Praise for Confessions with Keith

"Bridget Jones meets Nora Ephron in this diarized account of Vita, a woman dealing with an unexpected plot twist after 20 years of marriage."
—Globe and Mail

"Magnetic ... artfully expressed—funny, honest, wry, intimate—private thoughts ... On page after assured page, Vita’s confounded, thrilled, irked, hurt, and envious—about minutia as well as the big picture—and all of which are facets of what she terms 'the senselessness of human existence.'"
—The Vancouver Sun

"Succinct, cheeky prose ... Holdstock’s fast-paced comic novel with its entertaining narrative will captivate readers, especially those who relish domestic tales."
—Winnipeg Free Press

"Things going wrong on many levels is the focus of the novel, but Vita’s ability to plough through the problems and often see the humour even when exhausted is refreshing ... Confessions with Keith deals with real life issues in a frenetic and funny manner."
—Candace Fertile, The BC Review

"A deftly crafted and wickedly fun read from cover to cover, Confessions with Keith by novelist Pauline Holdstock is the kind of story that will linger in the mind and memory long after the book itself has been finished and set back upon the shelf."
—Midwest Book Review

“This is a book about family, marriage, motherhood, and the importance of having a support network around you. I laughed, chuckled, and giggled my way through this book. And for that it gets 5 stars from me.”
—Consumed By Ink

"Confessions with Keith reminds us that life is a raw, radiant, and ridiculous story unfolding moment by moment for everyone in their separate subjectivities. It deserves laughter. It deserves tears. It is made more bearable by books like this, the literary equivalent of uncensored midnight conversation over cups of tea or glasses—plural—of wine."
—Amy Reiswig, Focus on Victoria

"With ample wit, Pauline Holdstock perfectly articulates the quiet sacrifice and crushing weight of keeping domestic order in the face of chaos. Confessions with Keith is not only a laugh-out-loud joy to read, but is bursting with incredible insight, and lends much-needed visibility to the inner life of a woman overlooked. A sheer delight of a book."
—Stacey May Fowles, co-editor of Good Mom on Paper

Praise for Pauline Holdstock

“Holdstock writes powerfully in Frankie’s voice, drawing readers into his internal life … absorbing.”
—Quill & Quire

“Pauline Holdstock enchants with a spell of delectable storytelling … the novel’s wonderment and delight in the possibilities of life is an effervescent tonic.”
—Vancouver Sun

“Captivating … An intriguing mystery … The novel finds its way with charming intrigue and humour.”
—Winnipeg Free Press

“Holdstock’s writing moves seamlessly between her research and her polished storytelling of people, landscape and grief. These are familiar preoccupations, but she continues to make them compelling and rich.”
—National Post

“Pauline Holdstock’s language is so powerful, her writing so wrought with emotion and beauty, that you become fully lost in her world.”
—Winnipeg Review