Canadian Family

Sous le ciel aveuglant de Noirax couve une longue tradition de secrets qu’il faudra un jour détricoter. Dans la Malmaison, les pères entretiennent depuis longtemps le silence, nourrissent les panses et multiplient les désidératas: Pampelune, la bougresse, Héléna, la Pimparela, des femmes au destin tragique. Le père est rassuré : le domaine est paisible, endormi. On a fermé la porte de la Maison aux parfums de crainte que la vérité s’en échappe. Son fils, Jeanty, de retour au bercail après une déconvenue amoureuse, entame sa propre quête identitaire.

A widow visits a spiritualist community to attempt to contact her late husband. A grieving teenager confronts the unfairness of his small-town world and the oncoming ecological disaster. A sexual assault survivor navigates her boyfriend's tricky family and her own confusing desires. A mother examines unresolved guilt while seeking her missing daughter in a city slum. A lover exploits his girlfriend's secrets for his own purposes. Whether in Ecuador or San Francisco, rural Ontario or northern Manitoba, the landscape in each of Carter's poignant short stories reflects each character's journey.

For seventeen-year-old Adanna Nkwachi, life is all about duty: to school and the debate team, to her Nigerian parents, and even to her cousin Genny as Ada helps prepare Genny’s wedding to Afrobeats superstar Skeleboy. Because ever since her older brother, Sam, had a fight with their parents a few years ago and disappeared, somebody has to fill the void he left behind. Ada may never know what caused Sam to leave home, but the one thing she’s certain of is that it’s on her to make sure her parents’ sacrifices aren’t in vain.

It's 1998. And Mansoor Visram has lived in Canada for 25 years, ever since dictator Idi Amin expelled South Asians from Uganda. As a refugee with a wife and child, Mansoor has tried his best to recreate the life they once had, but starting over in Canada has been much harder than he expected. He's worked as a used car salesman, as a gas station attendant, and now he runs a small dry cleaner in suburban Calgary. But he's hatching plans for a father and son empire that will bring back the wealth and status the Visrams enjoyed in Uganda.

Kerstin Ostheim, a journalist, and P. J. Banner, a freelance photographer, have been together six months after meeting on a dating website. They are getting married in two weeks and as the wedding fast approaches, they question their compatibility while investigating mysterious horse killings that are taking place in Ogweyo's Cove, the Pacific tourist haven where they live.

As a boy, George Elliott Clarke knew that a great deal was expected from him and his two brothers. The descendants of a highly accomplished, Virginia-descended family on his father, Bill’s, side, George felt called to live up to the family name. In contrast, his mother, Gerry’s, family were warm, down-to-earth country folk. Such contradictions underlay much of his life and upbringing - Black and White, country and city, outstanding and ordinary, high and low. George interrogates these dualities in Where Beauty Survived and shows us how they shaped him as a poet and thinker.

Une mère partie en voyage, un père qui n’a fait que passer, Simone et Léo se retrouvent seuls. À quinze et dix ans, ils font le choix de faire comme si. Comme si tout allait bien. Sans rien dire, au cas où un adulte aurait la bonne idée de s’en mêler. Et de les séparer. Avec sa plume brève et sensible, Pascale Wilhelmy nous emmène dans l’univers de deux enfants devenus grands. Beaucoup trop tôt.

Originaire de Gaspésie, Camille Aubry habite la ville de Québec où elle complète, à 25 ans, un doctorat en psychologie. Hantée par un drame familial survenu neuf ans plus tôt, Camille soulage les souffrances de ses patients psychiatriques tout en tentant de réparer son propre traumatisme. Survient Léo, son jeune voisin, à qui elle offre un refuge apaisant quand ça s’agite trop chez lui. Au fil de leurs échanges se tisse une amitié précieuse et salvatrice entre le garçon négligé et la femme abîmée.

«Toute va ben été» [tutvabete] expression locale? Ce qu'on se dit pour se con­­vaincre que tout finira par s'arranger, mais sans pouvoir s'exprimer correctement parce qu'on est CLAIREMENT DÉPASSÉ PAR LA VIE. Sans prétention, sans compromis, sans filtre, voici mes réflexions et mes anecdotes sur ces étapes de la vie, de l'adolescence à l'âge adulte, qui nous font dire (en serrant un peu les dents): «Toute va ben été!»

On the brink of 40, Bea Rose has lost her lover, her business, and her bearings. When the opportunity arises to work on a summer production of King Lear to be staged in various parks around Montreal, she takes it, despite her utter lack of theatre experience. Things get off to a rocky start when Bea meets the artistic director, Artie White, a childhood friend whose presence stirs up painful memories. At the same time, Bea's father begins behaving erratically, and her younger sister Cara discovers cracks in the foundation of an apparently perfect life.

Flat Stanley goes north! Stanley Lambchop and his family are in British Columbia, Canada, for some skiing and winter fun. But when Stanley and his new friend Nick go snowboarding - with Stanley as the snowboard, of course - they take a midair tumble just as the wind picks up...and find themselves floating in an amazing Canadian cross-country journey that might just be Stanley's wildest adventure yet!

Comment se sent-on quand on a presque quinze ans, qu’on n’a pas de famille et que par-dessus le marché, on est balancée dans une maison habitée par la vieille folle du quartier ? En faisant taire les rumeurs, en surmontant ses peurs et surtout, en suivant sa petite voix curieuse, Amandine apprendra que la vérité se cache parfois aux endroits où l’on s’y attend le moins. Que peut faire une adolescente devant les avances incessantes et sournoises d’un beau-père qu’elle déteste, une mère qui est absente plus souvent qu’autrement et une vie qui va à la dérive ?

Canadian Jim Armstrong married in haste during the Second World War after a one-night stand. When his wife and their small son join him in Canada, it's four years since they've seen each other. War bride Joan discovers Jim has no intention of the family returning to England. She struggles to adapt to life on a remote farm in Ontario, far from her family and cold-shouldered by Jim's mother. Jim, haunted by his wartime experiences in Italy, Iingering feelings for a former lover, and the demands of the farm, begins to doubt his love for Joan.

Faire partie d’une famille nombreuse, c’est toute une aventure ! Du moins, c’est ce que croit Jade, qui a… six frères et sœurs ! Entre les cris, le bruit et le chaos ambiant, pas facile de trouver un peu de tranquillité dans la maison. Trop souvent, la jeune fille a plutôt l’impression de vivre dans un zoo. Quand les parents annoncent que la famille partira pour la première fois en vacances au bord de la mer, l’excitation est à son comble. Mais les enfants Métivier sont loin de se douter qu’ils ne sont pas au bout de leurs surprises.

Pour vivre votre maternité sereine et heureuse.

"Canadian Family Adventures" follows the tale of 10 Irish siblings who immigrate to Canada in the late 1880s. Their mother, Maggie Collins, wants her children, between the ages of 10 years old and 30 years old, to have a good life, and she arranges for them to sail to Canada. The ten siblings arrive in Canada by ship, and each one settles in a different area of Canada and pursues a different career.

The Second World War had been under way for a year when Marie and John Williamson welcomed two English brothers to join them and their two children in their small house in north Toronto for the duration of the conflict. Marie wrote over 150 letters to the boys’ mother, Margaret Sharp, imagining that she could make Margaret feel she was still with her children. She shepherded the boys through education decisions and illnesses, eased them into a strange new life, and rejoiced when they embraced unfamiliar winter sports.

À la mort de son amoureux Léon, Étienne, sage-femme, s’exile seule sur une île au cœur du Saint-Laurent. Elle y travaille comme infirmière de garde, renouant ainsi avec son premier métier. Son quotidien paisible est secoué par l’arrivée impromptue de son beau-fils, qui l’amènera à revisiter un drame survenu vingt ans plus tôt et dont elle croyait avoir fait le deuil.

Nightmares still haunt Chloe 13 years after she lost her baby sister. Her mother, Jules, with a busy tech career and long history of chronic pain, has little time for Chloe. After Chloe drops out of university to travel for a year, Jules’s OxyContin dependency quickly becomes a problem. Aftershock follows their parallel journeys: Jules struggles to regain control of her life and come to terms with the emotional pain that has so long manifested itself in her body. Chloe, after a rocky visit with her estranged father in New Zealand, resolves to go off the map....

The recipient of the Journey Prize and Edna Staebler Award, Heather Birrell made a splash in the literary world with her first collection, I Know You Are But What Am I? In Mad Hope, Birrell employs her keen insight into the human condition to present tales featuring a complex array of characters, including a gay man caring for a friend and a science teacher faced with a shocking request.