Sacred Rage - by Steven Heighton (Paperback)

About the Book

"In the years before his unexpected death, returning to short fiction after a long absence, Steven Heighton wrote to his longtime editor John Metcalf to say that he understood that the short story marked his most important contribution to literature, and that "after the novels, rereading and writing short stories again felt like returning home." In the fifteen stories taken from across his four collections, Sacred Rage offers us Heighton as the moral explorer of the global suburbs, as chronicler of our innermost stories of love and fear, sleeping and waking, of a rebel "unabashedly devoted to the old pursuit," as he once called it, "of truth and beauty." These are stories of grace and the lack of it; of elegy and requiem; of hope and care in a world where these seem increasingly alien, stories by one of our most sharp-eyed and generous writers, whether you're discovering them for the first time, or once again"--

Book Synopsis

A Globe 100 Best Book of 2025 - A Globe and Mail Fall Book of 2025

"A writer only feels like a writer when in the act. And the will, I said, is never enough . . . Where does inspiration, that sacred rage, originate? Maybe it's just a matter of stubbornly starting something new and writing your way into the slot."--Steven Heighton

In the years before his unexpected death, Steven Heighton wrote to his longtime editor John Metcalf to say that he understood that the short story marked his most important contribution to literature, and that "after the novels, rereading and writing short stories again felt like returning home." In the fifteen stories taken from across his four collections, Sacred Rage offers us Heighton as the moral explorer of the global suburbs, as chronicler of our innermost stories of love and fear, sleeping and waking, of a rebel "unabashedly devoted to the old pursuit," as he once called it, "of truth and beauty." These are stories of grace and the lack of it; of elegy and requiem; of hope and care in a world where these seem increasingly alien, stories by one of our most sharp-eyed and generous writers, whether you're discovering them for the first time, or once again.

Review Quotes

Praise for Sacred Rage

"[Heighton has] a cool mordant tone and sharp eye for human indignities at once sad and funny; an ear for how actual people sound and the confidence to let them sound that way on the page."
--Randy Boyagoda, Globe and Mail

"Though his poetry established him as a leading figure in contemporary Canadian fiction, Heighton . . . apparently told his long-time editor John Metcalf, a few years before the author's sudden death by cancer, in 2022, that he believed the short story was his greatest contribution to literature."
--Emily Donaldson, Globe and Mail

"The assertion that Steven Heighton is one of the very best writers this country has ever produced will not meet with much resistance. His intrepid nature and astonishing versatility, not to mention his dedication to craft, made him proficient at any form of written expression to which he set his mind . . . Sacred Rage is a fitting tribute to Steven Heighton's legacy. The stories collected here demonstrate his remarkable range and achieve a standard that writers everywhere should aim for."
--Ian Colford, The Seaboard Review

"Well known in his native Canada, not as well known in America, this is just genius stuff, well-presented by Biblioasis, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite independent publishers."
--John Warner, The Biblioracle

Praise for Instructions for the Drowning

"To read work like Heighton's knowing that we won't get more of it . . . inspires fury in all directions . . . Every story in this collection has 'it, ' whatever Heighton decided 'it' would be: pacing that thrills; fragile love and blind hate; descriptions you can smell and taste and hear."
--New York Times

"Heighton, who died last year at 60, draws on our most vulnerable moments in this moving collection, full of understated tension and exacting detail. The characters feel both recognizable and one-of-a-kind."
--New York Times

"These stories, by a Canadian novelist, poet, and musician who died last year, peer keenly into the penumbra surrounding death."
--New Yorker

"To create so many small worlds and characters that feel so real and populate is an act of transcendence. To do it well is to offer a gift. In Instructions, the late Steven Heighton has managed both, and the gift is ours."
--Globe and Mail

"As these stories demonstrate, human life is a means of exploration and celebration, threaded through with darkness and loss. In the midst of death, Heighton seems to say, we are in life: it should be savoured."
--Toronto Star

"As a poet and later as fiction writer Steven Heighton had this stunning range of voice in his stories. He would go anywhere. He always surprised you. His death as a still young writer is a tragedy and a great loss. He was a writer who grew so much with each book. You could always witness it happening."
--Michael Ondaatje

About the Author

Steven Heighton (1961-2022) was a writer and musician. His nineteen previous books include the story collection Instructions for the Drowning, a New Yorker Best Book of 2023; the novels Afterlands, a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice, and the bestselling The Shadow Boxer; the Writers' Trust Hilary Weston Prize finalist memoir Reaching Mithymna: Among the Volunteers and Refugees on Lesvos; and The Waking Comes Late, winner of the Governor General's Award for Poetry.