In Case I Go

by Angie Abdou

tagged: literary, small town & rural, ghost, contemporary women

Description

The latest by Angie Abdou: young Eli invokes the spirit, and the mistakes, of his great-great-grandfather.

In Canada Reads finalist Angie Abdou's fifth work of fiction, Eli and his parents have returned to their family home in Coalton, a small mountain town. The parents, Nicholas and Lucy, hope that by escaping their hectic city lives, they will restore calm and stability to their marriage, but they find that once charming Coalton is no longer the remote idyll they remembered. Development of a high-end subdivision has disturbed a historic graveyard, drawing negative press from national media. While Nicholas works long hours at the local coal mine and Lucy battles loneliness and depression, Eli befriends Mary, a troubled Ktunaxa girl who lives next door. Both children, disturbed by visions of people and places long forgotten, are challenged to account for past lives of seduction and betrayal.

A new kind of ghost story, In Case I Go is about the many ways we're haunted by the misdeeds of our ancestors.

About the Author

Angie Abdou has a PhD from the University of Calgary and is a Professor of Creative Writing at Athabasca University. Her first novel, The Bone Cage (NeWest Press), was a finalist in CBC's Canada Reads competition. She is also the author of Between and In Case I Go (both from Arsenal Pulp Press), The Canterbury Trail (Brindle & Glass), Anything Boys Can Do (Thistledown Press), and the memoir Home Ice (ECW Press). She lives in Fernie, BC.

Editorial Reviews

In Case I Go crackles with tension, mystery, and marvel from the opening pages. Intricately structured, saturated with compassion, and with a deep understanding for how the past affects the present, this novel is sure to win Angie Abdou the wide readership she deserves. -Lauren B. Davis, author of Our Daily Bread and The Empty Room

The past reaches up from the soil of In Case I Go to grab hold of its characters and readers alike, refusing to let go. Angie Abdou has written a grown-up work of fantasy, transporting as it is grounded and real. -Andrew Pyper, author of The Only Child and The Demonologist

In Case I Go is the gorgeous and shattering triumph of a writer at the very height of her powers. Each page pulls the reader through to the next -- compelling, heartbreaking, and convincing, this book demands to be lived. -Kevin Patterson, author of Country of Cold and News from the Red Desert

A spectacularly successful novel ... This book is highly recommended to anyone who cares about strong, moving fiction and about social justice. Vancouver Sun

Like the small coal mining town that Angie Abdou writes about in her latest work, In Case I Go is a deceptively complex testament to the intertwining histories of lives lived and lost, and the legacies they leave for those that follow. The Ktunaxa presence in her writing grounds this work, and in doing so Angie Abdou offers an important and timely contribution to the country's quest for reconciliation. Su'kini. -Anna (Sam) Hudson, Ktunaxa First Nation

The manner in which Abdou weaves a family drama with an overdetermined colonial history is literary brilliance. -subTerrain

In Eli's voice, Abdou has struck gold -- he's both sage and fretful, a reliable storyteller who is also at the vortex of the book's mercurial plot. -Chatelaine

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