Fish Change Direction In Cold Weather
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
When his parents tell him that they’re splitting up and his dad leaves home, a ten-year-old boy begs the sky to help him. The next day, a storm covers Montreal in a deep layer of ice. As the power goes out across the city and the temperature drops, people must help each other in order to survive. The boy is convinced that it’s all his fault.
But at least one neighbourhood will never be the same. Julie, the exotic dancer who lives across the street, helps Boris, an eccentric Russian mathematician, save his fish from the cold weather. And the urbane Michel and Simon open their door to Alexis, their homophobic neighbour, and his son. Three days in the frozen city will turn their lives upside down—but will the ice storm bring the boy’s parents back together?
Sparklingly funny, wise and joyful, Fish Change Direction in Cold Weather reminds us that life is full of the unexpected, and that happy endings might still be possible.
Praise for Fish Change Direction in Cold Weather
"If it's possible to romp through a natural disaster, Pierre Szalowski does just that. Fish Change Direction in Cold Weather offers a giddy, open-hearted look at the 1998 Ice Storm we might all wish we’d lived through." - Trevor Cole, author of Practical Jean
"A little boy looks out the window of his Montreal apartment and prays for a natural disaster to prevent his parents from divorcing. That is how this magical novel begins. During the course of Pierre Szalowski’s ice storm, the lives of the tenants in a building are turned on their heads. They invite strangers into their homes, discover incredible secrets, solve scientific enigmas and fall in love. Leave it to Pierre Szalowski to use a natural disaster as a setting to examine what it means to be openhearted, happy and Quebecoise. It is an exquisite snow globe of a book. Pick it up, turn it upside down and watch the storm begin to fall on Montreal all over again." - Heather O'Neill, author of Lullabies for Little Criminals
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In 1998, upon hearing the news that his parents plan to separate, a 10-year-old quietly slips off to his room, looks to the sky, and prays for help. The sky's response, or so this unnamed boy believes, is a historic ice storm one that cripples his Montreal suburb and forces his fractured family, as well as a handful of his neighbors, to band together in order to stay warm. The trouble with Szalowski's debut novel is that its resolutions are never much in doubt. When the electricity goes out at the apartment of isolated scientist Boris Bogdanov, he and his fish (the subject of his Ph.D. dissertation) move across the street to stay with Julie, a beautiful stripper grown weary of men. Likewise, when Alexis, a misanthropic, borderline alcoholic, loses power in the apartment he shares with his troubled son Alex, they cross the street to stay with Michel and Simon, two gay men posing as brothers to avoid bigoted condemnation. As these strangers are forced together, the struggle to stay warm quickly turns into a struggle for understanding of themselves and of each other. And in this tidy volume, none of these struggles are terribly difficult to overcome. The result is a sometimes sweet, sometimes funny story one that is too relentless in its quest for happy endings and that ultimately disappoints.
