#1 National Bestseller
Finalist, CBC Canada Reads
Finalist, Scotiabank Giller PrizeBy turns savage, biting, funny, poetic, and heartbreaking, Megan Gail Coles’s debut novel rips into the inner lives of a wicked cast of characters, exposing class, gender, and racial tensions over the course of one Valentine’s Day in the dead of a winter storm.
Valentine’s Day, the longest day of the year.
A fierce blizzard is threatening to tear a strip off the city, while inside The Hazel restaurant a storm system of sex, betrayal, addiction, and hurt is breaking overhead. Iris, a young hostess, is forced to pull a double despite resolving to avoid the charming chef and his wealthy restaurateur wife. Just tables over, Damian, a hungover and self-loathing server, is trying to navigate a potential punch-up with a pair of lit customers who remain oblivious to the rising temperature in the dining room. Meanwhile Olive, a young woman far from her northern home, watches it all unfurl from the fast and frozen street.
Through rolling blackouts, we glimpse the truth behind the shroud of scathing lies and unrelenting abuse, and discover that resilience proves most enduring in the dead of this winter’s tale.
- ISBN10 1487001711
- ISBN13 9781487001711
- Publish Date 5 November 2020
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country CA
- Imprint House of Anansi Press Ltd ,Canada
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 440
- Language English