Bad Imaginings

by Caroline Adderson

Overview

Winner of the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and shortlisted for the Governor-General's Award for fiction and the Commonwealth Writer's Prize, Caroline Adderson's short fiction collection travels far and wide. From adolescent brothers marooned at an indifferent relatives cottage, to a Depression-era Ukrainian immigrant reading the drought-parched skies above Palliser's Triangle, to two friends trying to make sense of feminism in the eighties, Adderson captures her characters' cadences, conflicts, and consolations, their individual burdens and the mysteries they share. Adventurous, often funny, and impeccably researched, these stories chart their lives with compassion and intelligence.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781771961868
Publisher:	Biblioasis
Publication date:	10/30/2018
Series:	ReSet
Pages:	160
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 8.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Caroline Adderson lives in Vancouver. Bad Imaginings was shortlisted for a 1993 Governor General's Award and won the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. She has also written two novels: A History of Forgetting was published in 1999, and Sitting Practice in 2003. In 2006 her second collection of short stories, Pleased to Meet You, was longlisted for the Giller Prize.

What People are Saying About This

John Metcalf

'Her stylistic bravura is breathtaking and heartbreaking. It is hard to believe that such passionate and mature writing can be found in a first book; we predict for her national acclaim and a distinguished career.'

Editorial Reviews

'... a collection that challenges the soul as well as the intellect.'

Vancouver Sun

'Bad Imaginings is the sort of book that stays with a reader long after it has been closed. A singular book, deep and mature. Caroline Adderson deserves congratulations.'

Globe & Mail

'Astonishing. There really isn't another word to describe Caroline Adderson's first book, Bad Imaginings, a collection of 10 stories so superior it is almost impossible to believe the author is only 30 years old — though it is entirely possible to see why she was recently nominated for a Governor General's Award.... These often funny and always adventurous stories are deeply felt and wildly imagined tributes to our own fragile, blinkered lives. And they fulfil the only real condition of art: they make you feel richer for having read them.'

Georgia Straight

'Adderson is one of this country's best -- and least heralded -- short-story writers. Like Lisa Moore, Adderson's stories have been characterized as "difficult" by people groomed to expect some neat moral at the close, or some clever twist à la Poe or Maupassant. Adderson, who rightly acknowledges that stories are closer in spirit to poetry than to novels, is more interested in language than in traditional notions of plot or character development; her stories are small stylistic masterpieces. Never showy or ornate, they epitomize Jonathan Swift's prescription for good writing: "Proper words in proper places." Although in Adderson's case, the word "proper" should be understood as "unexpected and delightful." '

— Alex Good & Steven W. Beattie

The Afterword

'... wit, flair for language, and wickedly uninhibited perception.'

The Toronto Star