The Work of Mercy: Stories - Softcover

Guppy, Stephen

9780887622236: The Work of Mercy: Stories

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0887622232 ISBN 13: 9780887622236

Publisher: Thomas Allen Pub, 2006

These nine stories from Stephen Guppy poignantly evoke the complex emotional terrain of children and teenagers from broken or dysfunctional families. These brilliantly conjured stories include a young Mormon girl from Utah and her mother who run away from the girl?s stepfather only to drive into the radioactive dust cloud from an atomic bomb test. Two brothers in Edmonton disappear as their mother tries to protect them from a polio epidemic. A man recollects his disjointed childhood spent with a war bride mother as they shuttle back and forth across the west. Two twins blame their mentally challenged younger brother for their fragmented youth. A young man breaks with the hippie lifestyle of his parents only to discover that his wife is more comfortable with his counter-culture father than with him. A young boy struggles with his father?s new girlfriend as her sons torment him and he reacts in an unexpected way. A frustrated daughter escapes her gambling family by cheating at

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About the Author:

Poet and short story writer Stephen Guppy lives on Vancouver Island. He is the author of Another Sad Day at the Edge of the Empire and the poetry collections Understanding Heaven, which was shortlisted for the BC Book Prize/Dorothy Livesay Award for Poetry, and Blind Date with the Angel: The Diane Arbus Poems. A new short story collection entitled The Work of Mercy is also forthcoming from Thomas Allen Publishers, containing the story Downwind, which was shortlisted for The Journey Prize. The Fire Thief is his first novel.

Review:

...a beguiling writer with the power to make us believe his tall tales. (The Globe and Mail)

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