A Fast Horse Never Brings Good News - by Cary Fagan (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Multiple award-winning author Cary Fagan displays his extraordinary range and talent in this propulsive new story collection that is by turns sensitive, surprising, and outrageously funny.

A disgruntled border in 1970s London watches an affair develop between his landlady and a young Canadian student. A woman recalls the family that lived in a lovely tree in her backyard. A fifteen-year-old girl steals a book from a bookstore and sets in motion a remarkable whirlwind journey through New York City. Three turn-of-the-century musicians cross into Saskatchewan to escape an angry gunslinger. A couple decides to separate, only to find that their cat and their dog have a lot to say on the matter.

With witty dialogue, compelling characters, and superb writing, each of the five exquisite stories in A Fast Horse Never Brings Good News differs vastly from the next, yet together conjure a world fuelled by the power of our wildest imaginings.

Review Quotes

"Using the sparest of prose, Fagan reveals a world both mysterious and amusingly off-kilter. A wonderful collection." --Robert Hough, author of Anarchists in Love

"Cary Fagan is one of our most clear-eyed, charming, humane writers. In this collection, he dramatizes so many various lives with confidence, concision, and empathy. This book is for all of us who crave stories about interconnectedness, illuminating our attachments to each other and the more-than-human world." --Deborah Willis, author of Girlfriend on Mars

"This book is sharp, funny, and quietly profound, crafted with the elegance of a master. Each story feels both timeless and modern, threaded with post-ironic tenderness. This is storytelling at its best: clever, mesmerizing, and a genuine pleasure to read." --Sarah Selecky, author of Story Is a State of Mind: Writing and the Art of Creative Curiosity

About the Author

CARY FAGAN is the author of eight novels and six short story collections. He has won many awards, including a Foreward Indies Silver Award for Humor, the Canadian Jewish Literary Award for Fiction, and the Toronto Book Award. He has also been nominated for various prizes, including the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction, the Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Award, and the Giller Prize. Fagan's work has been translated into French, Italian, German, Dutch, Spanish, Catalan, Turkish, Russian, Polish, Chinese, Korean and Persian, and he is also a "beloved" (Quill & Quire) author of books for children. He lives in Toronto.