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- And the Birds Rained Down is our best-selling translation ever, and was a huge success internationally. It was shortlisted for a dozen different prizes, including the Prix des Cinq Continents de la Francophonie in France and Canada Reads. This is a much-anticipated follow-up.
- This book furthers Birds' theme of aging and dying on one's own terms; this theme feels even more salient now as we consider how long-term-care homes work (and don't) during the pandemic.
- For people who love the Alice Munro classic Away From Her.
About the author
Jocelyne Saucier was born in New Brunswick and lives in Abitibi, Québec. Two of her previous novels, La vie comme une image (House of Sighs) and Jeanne sur les routes (Jeanne’s Road) were finalists for the Governor General’s Award. Il pleuvait des oiseaux (And the Birds Rained Down) garnered her the Prix des Cinq continents de la Francophonie, making her the first Canadian to win the award. The book was a CBC Canada Reads Selection in 2015.
Rhonda Mullins is a writer and translator. She received the 2015 Governor General's Literary Award for Twenty-One Cardinals, her translation of Jocelyne Saucier's Les héritiers de la mine. And the Birds Rained Down, her translation of Jocelyne Saucier’s Il pleuvait des oiseaux, was a CBC Canada Reads Selection. It was also shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award, as were her translations of Élise Turcotte’s Guyana and Hervé Fischer’s The Decline of the Hollywood Empire. Rhonda currently lives in Montréal.
Summary
Away From Her meets Strangers on a Train in this follow-up to cult bestseller And the Birds Rained Down
"A journey as geographical as it is interior... a bumpy route, but one punctuated by contemplative pleasures, by small, lost joys... Simultaneously introspective and captivating, [And Miles to Go Before I Sleep...] reconnects us to what is essential." —Les Libraires
“Nostalgic and beautifully grotesque, this novel is delightfully baroque and, although short, so striking it simply will never leave you.” —The Coast, on And the Birds Rained Down
"Cleaving closely to the award-winning Jocelyne Saucier novel on which it’s based, this eco-friendly, elegantly delivered tale about the sunset changes in the lives of a trio of graybeards living in the woods is engaging, thought-provoking and ultimately moving." –The Hollywood Reporter, on the film adaptation of And the Birds Rained Down
After And The Birds Rained Down, a stunning meditation on aging and freedom (with more than 3,000 Goodreads ratings), Jocelyne Saucier is back with this unsettling story about a woman’s disappearance.
Gladys might look old and frail, but she is determined to finish her life on her own terms. And so, one September morning, she leaves Swastika, her home of the past fifty years, and hops on the Northlander train, eager to put thousands of miles of northern Quebec between her and the improbably named village, and leaving behind her perennially tormented daughter, Lisana.
Our mysterious narrator, who is documenting these disappearing northern trains, is on a quest to uncover the truth of Gladys’s voyage, tracking down fellow passengers and train employees to learn what happened to Gladys and her daughter, and why.
Foreword
- ARCs at Winter Institute
- Special outreach to fiction media, booksellers, librarians
- Print and digital ARCs
- Co-op available
Additional text
“With And Miles To Go Before I Sleep, Jocelyne Saucier has added a hefty brick to the literary edifice she has built over time, a profound, touching work, filled with ordinary characters living extraordinary lives, who, far from the limelight, are on stirring quests for the absolute.” —Michaël Pelletier-Lalonde, L'indice bohémien
