Not the Apocalypse I Was Hoping for - (Brave & Brilliant) by Leslie Greentree (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Award-winning author Leslie Greentree presents fourteen short stories in this dark, often funny, deeply compelling collection that asks how we locate, create, and avoid meaning in our lives. These are stories about people and relationships challenged by death and redeemed by art. Satirical, political, personal, and tender, they take us to funerals, protests, art galleries, to the dark side of the service industry, and through cities on fire.

An actress turns her terminal cancer diagnosis into an art installation; a boy's attempt at a practical joke derails his grandfather's funeral; a mother discovers she may care more for her sick dog than her newborn son; a man watches his dream of becoming a #hero burn with the city around him; a teacher befriends a gargoyle; a coalition of women fighting for bodily autonomy turn to the ultimate shock-performance protest.

Taking on the social collective, the performance of death, the political battleground, and the search for existential happiness with fearlessness and verve, Not the Apocalypse I Was Hoping For is full of sharp observation, irreverence, wit, and compassion.

Review Quotes

Greentree's knack for comedy interweaves with an aching sorrow.--AlbertaViews Magazine

Leslie Greentree's bold and beleaguered creations run the gamut from apathy to flaming anger . . . Yet the center holds. The world keeps spinning. Within these fourteen tales, the fight for meaning and honesty continues.--The Literary Review of Canada

About the Author

Leslie Greentree is the author of the award-winning short story collection A Minor Planet for You. Her second book of poetry, go-go dancing for Elvis, was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize. Leslie co-wrote the play Oral Fixations with her life partner Blaine Newton, which was produced in 2014 by Ignition Theatre. She has won CBC literary competitions for poetry and fiction, and has been shortlisted for Writer's Guild of Alberta and Humber Creative Nonfiction awards.