A refreshingly original debut collection of short stories that grapple with the self-alienation and self-discovery that make us human.For fans of Souvankham Thammavongsa, Lynn Coady, and Lisa Moore comes a striking debut collection of short stories that explore bodies both human and animal: our fascination with their strange effluences, growths, and protrusions, and the dangerous ways we play with their power to inflict harm on ourselves and on others. Throughout The Whole Animal, flawed characters wrestle with the complexities of relationships with partners, parents, children, and friends as they struggle to find identity, belonging, and autonomy. Bodies are divided, often elusive, even grotesque. In "Porcelain Legs," a pre-teen fixes on the long, thick hair growing from her mother's eyelid. In "Wolf-Boy Saturday," a linguist grasps for connection with a young boy whose negligent upbringing has left him unable to speak. In...

A heartfelt and quirky look at growing up mixed-race in 1990s Calgary, viewed through the lens of the irrepressible Grace. The strange interests of Grace and her mother Belinda, ufology and undersea life respectively, do not overshadow the human kindness and love that suffuses this novel.Half-Asian teenager Grace (but she'd prefer it if you called her "Gray" instead) is not a perfect little supermom-in-the-making like her older sister Jessica, and would rather become a marine biologist than a mother—although she does understand how to take care of her peculiar kid brother Squid better than anyone else in her family. When her mother Belinda abruptly runs out on her family and flies across the Atlantic in order to study crop circles in the English countryside, Grace is left alone to puzzle out her life, the world, and her unique place within it.With a warmth and a boisterous sense of humour reminiscent of Miriam Toews' A Complicated Kindness and Peter Hedges'...