I Am a Truck

Finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize

A tender but lively debut novel about a man, a woman, and their Chevrolet dealer.

Agathe
and Réjean Lapointe are about to celebrate their twentieth wedding
anniversary when Réjean’s beloved Chevy Silverado is found abandoned at
the side of the road-with no trace of Réjean. Agathe handles her grief
by fondling the shirts in the Big and Tall department at Hickey’s Family
Apparel and carrying on a relationship with a cigarette survey. As her
hope dwindles, Agathe falls in with her spirited coworker, Debbie, who
teaches Agathe about rock and roll, and with Martin Bureau, the one man
who might know the truth about Réjean’s fate. Set against the landscape
of rural Acadia, I Am a Truck is a funny and moving tale about the possibilities and impossibilities of love and loyalty.

Scotiabank Giller Prize Jury Citation:
French
or English, stick or twist, Chevy or Ford? Michelle Winters has written
an original, off-beat novel that explores the gaps between what people
are and what they want to be. For a short book I am a Truck is
bursting with huge appetites, for love and le rock-and-roll and cheese,
for male friendship and takeout tea with the bag left in. Within the
novel’s distinctive Acadian setting French and English co-exist like old
friends – comfortable, supple to each other’s whims and rhythms,
sometimes bickering but always contributing to this fine, very funny,
fully-achieved novel about connection and misunderstanding. And trucks.

“I Am a Truck is a mystery of considerable depth. And it is also very funny.”—Atlantic Books Today

"At once charming, funny, bizarre and highly original with a feel-good ending reminiscent of Thelma and Louise’s iconic finale."—Canadian Living