Home Schooling
Stories
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Families come together and come apart in the Pacific Northwest: "Exceptional . . . Every single story is worthy of reading." —The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
A Scotiabank Giller Prize Nominee
Set in the temperate rain forests of Vancouver Island and the vibrant cities of the Pacific Northwest, the stories in Home Schooling uncover the hidden freight of families as they dissolve and reform. Marriages fall apart; children cope with tragedy; relationships take unexpected turns; and happiness comes from unlikely alliances. These emotionally engrossing tales reveal how the people we live with, the very world that surrounds us, can sometimes shift into new and startling configurations.
"Windley keeps readers' attention with a fast pace and an eye for fresh details that make her efficient, achingly human dramas absorbing and sympathetic." —Publishers Weekly
"The families in Carol Windley's remarkable story collection are as unsettled and moody as the wind-blasted landscape that shelters and confounds them . . . Windley can create an almost tactile atmosphere of uncertainty and dread." —The Miami Herald
"Carol Windley's writing has a unique power, a perfect combination of delicacy, intensity, and fearless imagination." —Alice Munro
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Peopled by a handful of vulnerable yet resilient creative types, among them poets, musicians, teachers and artists, Canadian author Windley's accomplished story collection focuses on the domestic scene, examining how family, lovers and neighbors leave their indelible marks. Mostly centered on or near Vancouver Island, Windley's cagey moments of conflict deftly illuminate her narrators' capacity for both pettiness and grace. In "The Joy of Life," Alex finds herself living in the shadow of her best friend Dsire's idyllic life, but chances picking up the pieces when Dsire begins drifting from her husband and child. "Felt Skies" features a woman looking back on her connections with her strict mother and with her first adult lover, a much older man. Marisa of "Children's Games" moves into her lover's house and struggles to relate to his disagreeable, unpredictable son. Despite an abundance of similarly middle-class, introverted female characters, Windley keeps readers' attention with a fast pace and an eye for fresh details that make her efficient, achingly human dramas absorbing and sympathetic.
