Mad Hope - by Heather Birrell (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

In the stories of Mad Hope, Heather Birrell finds the heart of her characters and lets them lead us into worlds both unrecognizable and alarming. We think we know these people but discover we don't--they are more alive, more real, and more complex than we first imagined. A high school science teacher is forced to re-examine the role he played in Nicolae Ceausescu's Romania after a student makes a shocking request. The uncertainty, anxiety, and anticipation of pregnancy are examined through an online chat group. Parenting is viewed from the perspective of a gay man caring for his friend and her adopted son. A tragic plane crash becomes the basis for a meditation on motherhood and its discontents.

Birrell uses precise, inventive language to capture the beautiful mess of being human--and more than lives up to her Journey Prize accolades. Her characters come to greet us, undo us, make us yearn, and make us smile.

Heather Birrell is the author of the story collection I know you are but what am I? Her work has been honored with the prestigious Journey Prize for short fiction and the Edna Staebler Award for creative nonfiction.

Review Quotes

'This is a beautiful book: funny, whip-smart, compassionate, and gorgeously written. Heather Birrell belongs in the short story pantheon with Alice Munro, Lisa Moore, and Zsuzsi Gartner.'
-- Annabel Lyon

'A collection of 11 stories that beautifully illustrate the fragility of existence ... They transport the reader to emotionally corrosive places, yet are alive with a sense of levity even within their darkest passages.'
-- National Post

'This collection requires quiet concentration as each tale resonates like a tiny, perfect novella. Mad Hope is hopeful yet realistic, wordy yet sublime. It contains everything a demanding reader wants from her short fiction - wickedly accurate, open-ended portraits drawn from life.'
-- Winnipeg Free Press

'These people are so wonderfully accurate, so blatantly human ... Birrell peels back the layers of civility to expose the dark and messy bits we all hide, but she does so with such finesse that we are simultaneously captivated and repulsed by the intimacy of it all.'
-- Quill & Quire

'Birrell has the telltale eye for detail that marks a great storyteller.'
-- Georgia Straight

About the Author

Heather Birrell is the author of the Gerald Lampert award-winning poetry collection, Float and Scurry, and two story collections, Mad Hope (a Globe and Mail top fiction pick for 2012) and I know you are but what am I?. Heather's work has been honoured with the Journey Prize for short fiction, the Edna Staebler Award for creative non-fiction, and ARC Magazine's Reader's Choice Award. She has been shortlisted for the KM Hunter Award and both National and Western Magazine Awards (Canada). Heather's essay about motherhood appeared in The M Word, an anthology that broadens the conversation about what mothering means today, and an essay about post-partum depression was a notable mention in Best American Essays 2017. Heather teaches at a small alternative high school in Toronto, where she lives with her mother, partner, two daughters, and a whoodle named Angus.