Saints of Big Harbour

Lynn Coady’s fiction has been called “striking . . . [full of] crazy energy and hilarity” (National Post) and hailed for “avoiding the trendy, distancing devices of satire, cynicism and irony” (Globe and Mail). Coady’s third book, her first to be published in the United States, portrays a small community in Nova Scotia and the power of gossip and violence within it. In "Saints of Big Harbour," Guy Boucher, a fatherless teenager, finds himself at the center of an ugly rumor involving a girl idealized by her town. Through his eyes and the stories of those who surround him — his uncle Isadore, Dickensian and overbearing; Pam, a quietly wise girl with a predilection for Shakespeare; his draft-dodger English teacher; a pair of golden boys stuck in emotional adolescence — several versions of truth emerge and combine. As the story unfolds, so does a portrait of a community driven and oppressed by clichés of gender, strength and beauty, family and love. Villainy is an everyday affair in Big Harbour, and the closest thing to heroism is Guy’s dogged ingenuousness and makeshift dignity. In this, her most entertaining and profound book, Coady returns to the fertile territory explored by Ann-Marie MacDonald and Alistair MacLeod and again “displays a virtuosic charting of psychic ambiguity that never quits” (Toronto Star).

Literature & Fiction

Coady, Lynn

Contemporary

JONATHAN CAPE.

A piercing epistolary novel, The Antagonist explores, with wit and compassion, how the impressions of others shape, pervert, and flummox both our perceptions of ourselves and our very nature. Gordon Rankin Jr., aka “Rank,” thinks of himself as “King Midas in reverse”—and indeed misfortune seems to follow him at every turn. Against his will and his nature, he has long been considered—given his enormous size and strength—a goon and enforcer by his classmates, by his hockey coaches, and, not least, by his “tiny, angry” father. He gamely lives up to their expectations, until a vicious twist of fate forces him to flee underground. Now pushing forty, he discovers that an old, trusted friend from his college days has published a novel that borrows freely from the traumatic events of Rank’s own life. Outraged by this betrayal and feeling cruelly misrepresented, he bashes out his own version of his story in a barrage of e-mails to the novelist that range from funny to furious to heartbreaking. With The Antagonist, Lynn Coady demonstrates all of the gifts that have made her one of Canada’s most respected young writers. Here she gives us an astonishing story of sons and fathers and mothers, of the rewards and betrayals of male friendship, and a large-spirited, hilarious, and exhilarating portrait of a man tearing his life apart in order to put himself back together.

The Antagonist

Literary

KNOPF

Dramas & Plays

Vintage

Play the Monster Blind

Synopsis: An exhilarating collection of short fiction, Play the Monster Blind showcases the remarkably original voice of Lynn Coady, the award-winning author of Strange Heaven. Funny, poignant and smart, full of unforgettable characters, these stories explore the violence of family, the constraints of small-town life and the elusive promise of escape. In "Ice Cream Man," an adolescent girl struggles to come to terms with her mother's death and her father's seeming indifference while conducting a secret affair with an older man from the local arena. Gerald, the young boy in "Big Dog Rage," goes to extreme and reckless measures to thwart the expectations of his parents, teachers, and the local priest, leaving his childhood friend to look longingly on. And in the title story, Bethany sees her gentle fiancé anew as she enters the raucous world of his hard-drinking family. Receiving a sharp shot to the mouth from her future sister-in-law Bethany finds her place in this clan secured.

Short Stories & Anthologies

Doubleday, Canada

Lynn Coady’s fiction has been called “striking . . . [full of] crazy energy and hilarity” (National Post) and hailed for “avoiding the trendy, distancing devices of satire, cynicism and irony” (Globe and Mail). Coady’s third book, her first to be published in the United States, portrays a small community in Nova Scotia and the power of gossip and violence within it. In "Saints of Big Harbour," Guy Boucher, a fatherless teenager, finds himself at the center of an ugly rumor involving a girl idealized by her town. Through his eyes and the stories of those who surround him — his uncle Isadore, Dickensian and overbearing; Pam, a quietly wise girl with a predilection for Shakespeare; his draft-dodger English teacher; a pair of golden boys stuck in emotional adolescence — several versions of truth emerge and combine. As the story unfolds, so does a portrait of a community driven and oppressed by clichés of gender, strength and beauty, family and love. Villainy is an everyday affair in Big Harbour, and the closest thing to heroism is Guy’s dogged ingenuousness and makeshift dignity. In this, her most entertaining and profound book, Coady returns to the fertile territory explored by Ann-Marie MacDonald and Alistair MacLeod and again “displays a virtuosic charting of psychic ambiguity that never quits” (Toronto Star).

Vintage Canada

Anchor Canada

Strange Heaven is tearfully hilarious, as funny and appalling as reality. Bridget Murphy, almost eighteen, has come to Halifax from industrial Cape Breton, had her baby, and given it up for adoption. Transferred to the psych ward of the children's hospital, she's incarcerated with five seriously disturbed teenagers and a flock of wan children. She's depressed, they say. Apathetic. Bridget is a bit detached, but Four South is peaceful compared with the chaos back home. Her grandmother, Margaret P., raves and prays from her bed, banging the wall with her bedpan. Bridget's parents, Robert and Joan, take care of her and her mentally handicapped son, Rollie. Joan tries to keep the lid on, but she's no match for Robert's wild profanity, Margaret's dementia, and Rollie's efforts to join the fray. Uncle Albert, a kind man who saves his eloquent wrath for outsiders, springs Bridget from the hospital for Christmas. But home is more chaotic than ever, and she's sick of her boozy friends and the whining of the baby's father. She had half planned to hibernate at home till kingdom come, but it's become like a lurid movie she saw eons ago and she's forgotten the plot. Her future may be unclear, but she has a good idea of the direction it won't take.

Strange Heaven

World Literature

Earnest, small-town Lawrence Campbell is fascinated by his poetry professor, the charismatic and uncompromising Jim Arsenault. Larry is determined to escape a life of thrifty drudgery and intellectual poverty working for his parents’ motel and mini-golf business on Prince Edward Island. Jim appears to the young poet as a beacon of authenticity – mercurial, endlessly creative, fearless in his confrontations with the forces of conformity. And he drinks a lot. Jim’s magnetic personality soon draws Larry’s entire poetry composition class into his orbit. Among the other literary acolytes are Sherrie Mitten, with her ringletted blonde hair and guileless blue eyes, the turtlenecked, urbane Claude who writes villanelles, and the champion of rhyming couplets about the heroic struggles of the Maritime proletariat, Todd. Casting a huge shadow over the group is the varsity football player and recreational drug user Chuck Slaughter – titanically strong, capriciously violent, hilariously indifferent to the charms of the poetic life – who has nearly given up terrifying Larry in order to pursue an awkward romantic interest in Sherrie. Drawn by ambition and fascination, the group assembles itself fawningly around Jim, tagging along to bars, showing up at readings, thrilled to be invited to Jim’s home, a shambling farmhouse in the woods where he lives with Moira, his shrewish backwoods muse. Lost in adulation, Larry is so delighted to be singled out for Jim’s attention that he does not pause to wonder what Jim expects from his increasingly close relationship with the young poet.Closely observed and deeply funny, Mean Boy tells the story of Larry’s year-long battle against the indiscriminate use of quotation marks in advertising and his disillusionment as his narcissistic, hard-drinking idol spins out of control and threatens to take the young man’s cherished notions about art and poetry down with him. Mean Boy is Lynn Coady’s most polished and ambitious work to date.

Mean Boy

Earnest, small-town Lawrence Campbell is fascinated by his poetry professor, the charismatic and uncompromising Jim Arsenault. Larry is determined to escape a life of thrifty drudgery and intellectual poverty working for his parents' motel and mini-golf business on Prince Edward Island. Jim appears to the young poet as a beacon of authenticity - mercurial, endlessly creative, fearless in his confrontations with the forces of conformity. And he drinks a lot. Jim's magnetic personality soon draws Larry's entire poetry composition class into his orbit. Among the other literary acolytes are Sherrie Mitten, with her ringletted blonde hair and guileless blue eyes, the turtlenecked, urbane Claude who writes villanelles, and the champion of rhyming couplets about the heroic struggles of the Maritime proletariat, Todd. Casting a huge shadow over the group is the varsity football player and recreational drug user Chuck Slaughter - titanically strong, capriciously violent, hilariously indifferent to the charms of the poetic life - who has nearly given up terrifying Larry in order to pursue an awkward romantic interest in Sherrie. Drawn by ambition and fascination, the group assembles itself fawningly around Jim, tagging along to bars, showing up at readings, thrilled to be invited to Jim's home, a shambling farmhouse in the woods where he lives with Moira, his shrewish backwoods muse. Lost in adulation, Larry is so delighted to be singled out for Jim's attention that he does not pause to wonder what Jim expects from his increasingly close relationship with the young poet. Closely observed and deeply funny, Mean Boy tells the story of Larry's year-long battle against the indiscriminate use of quotation marks in advertising and his disillusionment as his narcissistic, hard-drinking idol spins out of control and threatens to take the young man's cherished notions about art and poetry down with him. Mean Boy is Lynn Coady's most polished and ambitious work to date.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Coady, Lynn. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Coady, Lynn

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Coady, Lynn. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Saints of Big Harbour

The Antagonist

The Antagonist

Play the Monster Blind

Saints of Big Harbour

Play the Monster Blind

Saints of Big Harbour

Strange Heaven

Mean Boy

Mean Boy