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Fletcher Agency
Melissa Chinchillo |
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Original language | |
English | |
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THE CROOKED HEART OF MERCY
For anyone who loves Jennifer Egan and Lorrie Moore, a smart, gritty and darkly funny story of how a family rebuilds itself after an unthinkable tragedy, by an award-winning author.
Ben is a formerly sharp-tongued limo driver who finds himself locked up in a psych ward with a hole in his head he can’t explain. His wife, Maggie, is the only one who can save him but she’s paralyzed with grief and struggling to find her own redemption. Maggie’s brother Francis, a gloriously debauched Catholic priest, is the newly minted star of YouTube’s latest viral video sensation thanks to yet another DUI. How they come together to heal each other’s wounds in the face of unimaginable heartache is what forms the basis of this breakthrough novel from one of Canada’s literary stars.
The novel has a gritty love story at its heart, but it’s also about the meaning of family and forgiveness. It’s never earnest or melancholy, it’s smart and bitterly funny. It’s about what we can find in ourselves to forgive and what we can and should be able to survive. The narrative unfolds from Ben and Maggie’s perspective in alternating chapters, and Billie captures each character exquisitely; Ben is confused and his voice plays on language while Maggie’s is acerbic and yet at the same time desperate to believe.
No other writer can combine the dark, the funny, and the tender like Billie can—her voice and the worlds she creates are nothing short of addicting.
Billie Livingston is the award-winning author of three novels, a collection of short stories as well as a poetry collection. Her most recent novel, One Good Hustle, a Globe and Mail Best Book selection, was nominated for the 2012 Giller Prize and for the Canadian Library Association’s Young Adult book of the year. Her short story Sitting on the Edge of Marlene has been adapted into a feature film and will debut at the Vancouver International Film Festival this fall.
The novel has a gritty love story at its heart, but it’s also about the meaning of family and forgiveness. It’s never earnest or melancholy, it’s smart and bitterly funny. It’s about what we can find in ourselves to forgive and what we can and should be able to survive. The narrative unfolds from Ben and Maggie’s perspective in alternating chapters, and Billie captures each character exquisitely; Ben is confused and his voice plays on language while Maggie’s is acerbic and yet at the same time desperate to believe.
No other writer can combine the dark, the funny, and the tender like Billie can—her voice and the worlds she creates are nothing short of addicting.
Billie Livingston is the award-winning author of three novels, a collection of short stories as well as a poetry collection. Her most recent novel, One Good Hustle, a Globe and Mail Best Book selection, was nominated for the 2012 Giller Prize and for the Canadian Library Association’s Young Adult book of the year. Her short story Sitting on the Edge of Marlene has been adapted into a feature film and will debut at the Vancouver International Film Festival this fall.
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Book
Published 2016-03-01 by Morrow |