Hellgoing by Lynn Coady
Yesterday, Lynn Coady won the Scotiabank Giller Prize 2013 for her collection of short-stories called “Hellgoing”. In an emotional speech, she thanked her husband, her parents and her publisher. She also added that she was proud to be a Canadian writer, especially since authors were treated like movie stars in our country.
About the book (from the publisher’s website, House of Anansi):
With astonishing range and depth, Scotiabank Giller Prize winner Lynn Coady gives us eight unforgettable new stories, each one of them grabbing our attention from the first line and resonating long after the last.
A young nun charged with talking an anorexic out of her religious fanaticism toys with the thin distance between practicality and blasphemy. A strange bond between a teacher and a schoolgirl takes on ever deeper, and stranger, shapes as the years progress. A bride-to-be with a penchant for nocturnal bondage can’t seem to stop bashing herself up in the light of day.
Equally adept at capturing the foibles and obsessions of men and of women, compassionate in her humour yet never missing an opportunity to make her characters squirm, fascinated as much by faithlessness as by faith, Lynn Coady is quite possibly the writer who best captures what it is to be human at this particular moment in our history.
Did you watch the Scotiabank Giller Prize 2013 ceremony yesterday? Are you going to read “Hellgoing”?