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A Bird on Every Tree

A Bird on Every Tree

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Carol Bruneau, author of six acclaimed works of fiction (most recently, These Good Hands), brings her finely honed voice to 12 new stories about shifting concepts of Nova Scotian identity.

In “The Race,” a war bride’s remarkable life trajectory unfolds as she competes in an international swim marathon in the Northwest Arm. Strain erupts between a Haligonian couple in “Burning Times,” while they struggle to keep track of one another, both... Read More

Carol Bruneau, author of six acclaimed works of fiction (most recently, These Good Hands), brings her finely honed voice to 12 new stories about shifting concepts of Nova Scotian identity.

In “The Race,” a war bride’s remarkable life trajectory unfolds as she competes in an international swim marathon in the Northwest Arm. Strain erupts between a Haligonian couple in “Burning Times,” while they struggle to keep track of one another, both physically and emotionally, on an Italian vacation. In “Polio Beach,” cousins gather oceanside over the will of a recently deceased aunt who once saved one of them from drowning.

Writing with empathy, humour, and linguistic precision, Bruneau follows characters who find themselves connected to Nova Scotia by birth, through attempts at escape and new beginnings, or as a temporary resting place, always carrying with them their own idiosyncratic and complex definitions of “home.”

Book details

Page length: 152 Publication Date: 2017-08-30 Book Subjects: FICTION / Short Stories Publisher: Nimbus Publishing ISBN: 9781771085021 Language: English

Awards

  • Atlantic Book Awards, Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction 2018, Short-listed
  • Atlantic Book Awards, Jim Connors Dartmouth Book Award (Fiction) 2018, Short-listed

Editorial reviews

"Her exceptional prose reveals how much there is to discover in the everyday These stories empathetically follow characters who struggle with loneliness and loss even as they experience joy If My Feet Dont Touch the Ground blends birdsong with laughter and tears as a mother says goodbye to her son in Berlin Doves takes place in Halifax Nova Scotia where a nun struggles to help a man who asks her to bury a dead pigeon in a shoebox To find humor in any of these stories readers will need to allow for it to be there to make a little space for lightness Bruneau does not settle for clich Her prose is accessible and lean as she flits into her characters lives"
- Publishers Weekly

"Carol Bruneaus collection of short stories A Bird on Every Tree gloriously explores the complex relationship people have with the place they call home"
- The Coast Halifax NS

"Bruneau is a master We should know this by now but A Bird on Every Tree is a powerful reminder"
- Rob Wiersma
- Quill and Quire Toronto ON

"In A Bird on Every Tree we run through a wide range of 12 beautiful and genuine stories all connected through the considerable pull of Nova Scotia"
- Atlantic Books Today Halifax NS

K-12 teacher information

Grade Range: 10, 11, 12Curriculum Subject: English Curriculum Subjects (All), English Language Arts (All)

Excerpts, Samples, and Guides

interior Download samples
At night crammed between them in the cot Id dream a strange dream in which I was a gull perched on the bluff granted a view not just of the cove but the rubble on its bottom The skeletons of boats broken bottles no treasure mind even a piano with barnacled keys

Soon after its members disband to move in new directions and Chris returns in time for winter to cool his itchy feet in Halifax before they take him off again to Toronto this time city of his birth city of new dreams

Now was the moment She could catch up or make a complete break offer an excuse facing him later on the bus Instead something made her rejoin the que even dart ahead apologizing to someone poised to drink She couldnt have explained what or why The world didnt stop neither did impulses

A life lost is never less than that nor is the severing of a tie great or small even when its an infatuation left unfed with nothing to fuel the work that love demands

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    Description

    <p>Carol Bruneau, author of six acclaimed works of fiction (most recently, <i>These Good Hands</i>), brings her finely honed voice to 12 new stories about shifting concepts of Nova Scotian identity. </p>
    <p>In “The Race,” a war bride’s remarkable life trajectory unfolds as she competes in an international swim marathon in the Northwest Arm. Strain erupts between a Haligonian couple in “Burning Times,” while they struggle to keep track of one another, both physically and emotionally, on an Italian vacation. In “Polio Beach,” cousins gather oceanside over the will of a recently deceased aunt who once saved one of them from drowning.</p>
    <p>Writing with empathy, humour, and linguistic precision, Bruneau follows characters who find themselves connected to Nova Scotia by birth, through attempts at escape and new beginnings, or as a temporary resting place, always carrying with them their own idiosyncratic and complex definitions of “home.”</p>

    Additional information

    Weight 0.22 kg
    Dimensions 8.5 × 220 × .5 in