Childhood

Literature & Fiction

Alexis, André

Contemporary

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

Night Piece

Bloomsbury Pub Ltd

Literary

MCCLELLAND STEWART

These eight stories reveal a world that's both recognizable and strange: cities of anxiety and violence, where quiet inhabitants lead outwardly banal lives that conceal sinister interiors. The premises, both fantastic and surreal, are also eerily plausible; they often follow the logic of dreams where the real can appear in disguise. Though geographically rooted, the setting - from Ottawa to Toronto and the South of France - take on an ephemeral dimension: the geography is of the subconscious. With his darkly philosophical bent and sly humour, Alexis has fashioned an underworld and limned it with light. Despair quakes with life and sings with the imaginative brilliance of one of the most accomplished new talents writing today.

Despair and Other Stories of Ottawa

Humor & Entertainment

Humor

Now in paperback, the winner of the Chapters/Best First Novel in Canada Award and the corecipient (with Alice Munro) of Canada's prestigious Trillium Award.
Set in the 1950s and '60s, this picaresque novel chronicles the childhood-or perhaps the loss of childhood-of Thomas MacMillan, a Canadian with ties to Trinidad, who pieces together, from memory and from related stories, the early years of his life. Raised in a small town near the U.S. border of Canada, Thomas is abandoned by his mother to the care of an eccentric grandmother. When he reaches the age of ten, his mother, Katarina, reclaims him and takes him to Ottawa, where they live in the Victorian home of Mr. Henry Wing, a magus-like figure whose love of science and the imagination becomes an important legacy for Thomas. But is he Thomas's father? This brilliantly crafted debut novel is a story about love, memory, and the potency of the past.

Childhood: A Novel

Asylum

McClelland & Stewart Ltd.

Alexis’s long-awaited second novel follows his award-winning Childhood.Set in Ottawa during the Mulroney years, Asylum is André Alexis’s sweeping, edged-in-satire, yet deeply serious tale of intertwined lives and fortunes, of politics and vain ambition, of the building of a magnificent prison, of human fallibility, of the search for refuge, of the impossibility of love, and of finding home. Whether he is taking us into the machinations of a government office or into the mysterious workings of the human heart, Alexis is always alert to the humour and the profound truth of any situation. His cast of characters is eccentric and unforgettable, all recognizable in one way or another as aspects of ourselves or people we know well. At the centre of the story, which covers almost a decade, is a visionary project to build an ideal prison, a perfect metaphor for the purest aspects of artistic ambition and for all that is great and flawed in the world.André Alexis is a true original, one of the most talented and astute writers writing in Canada today. This dazzling novel is filled with tragedy, dry wit, intellectual grist. It is playful, linguistically accomplished, and psychologically profound. Its yearnings constitute the highest level of human concerns and pursuits. Alexis has written The Great Canadian Novel, with a twist.From the Hardcover edition.

Humor & Satire

Emblem Editions

Despair: And Other Stories

United States

Henry Holt and Co.

Review “[Alexis’s] stories are thoughtful, lyrical and formally ingenious.”—Jonathan Lethem, The New York Times Book Review“Alexis combines a formal style, fantastic narratives and a sensualist’s world view to convey the subtle textures of grief, desire and love while at the same time spinning some very entertaining tales.”—Bliss Broyard, The Washington Post Book World“Like Nicholson Baker, Alain de Botton or the late Donald Barthelme, Alexis is a proponent of blatant, lively artifice in fiction. His prose is by turns playful, creepy and surreal.”—Michael Upchurch, The Seattle Times“The sliver of fear a reader feels is testimony to the fact that Alexis crosses some line between storytelling and incantation, in which the teller implicates the reader in the weaving of his spells.”—Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times Book Review Product Description The exquisitely crafted, haunting story collection from theaward-winning author of Childhood. Following on the heels of his award-winning first novel, Childhood, André Alexis's story collection, Despair, offers further proof of his brilliance and showcases his talent for spinning disturbing but elegant tales.Emerging from the landscapes and folklores of Trinidad and Canada, Despair reveals a world both recognizable and shockingly strange. A failed artist with beautiful hands is driven by a fetish for injuries in "The Third Terrace." While on an excursion to a bakery, a man wrestles with his capacity for evil deeds in "The Metaphysics of Morals." In "The Night Piece," a boy is haunted by a story about a soucouyant, a vampire in the guise of an old woman. In these eight beautifully crafted stories, shimmering with malevolence and longing, Alexis has fashioned an underworld and limned it with light. About the Author André Alexis was born in Trinidad in 1957 and grew up in Canada. His first novel was Childhood. Alexis lives in Toronto. From The Washington Post "...combines a formal style, fantastic narratives and a sensualist's worldview to convey the subtle textures of grief, desire and love...

Holt Paperbacks

Born in Trinidad and raised in Canada, the author presents a coming-of-age novel about a Canadian boy, abandoned by his mother, who travels to Ottawa where he meets an eccentric scientist who fires his imagination. 25,000 first printing. Tour.

Henry Holt Co.

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