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Published Apr 2016
372 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
From the acclaimed author of Lemon comes a clever and heartbreaking new novel of love and redemption.
Harriet is 11 going on 30. Her mixed-media art is a source of wonder to her younger brother, Irwin, but an unmitigated horror to the panoply of insufficiently grown-up grown-ups who surround her. She plans to run away to Algonquin Park, hole up in a cabin like Tom Thomson and paint trees; and so, to fund her escape, she runs errands for the seniors who inhabit the Shangrila, the decrepit apartment building that houses her fractured family.
Determined, resourceful, and a little reckless, Harriet tries to navigate the clueless adults around her, dumpster dives for the flotsam and jetsam that fuels her art, and attempts to fathom her complicated feelings for Irwin, who suffers from hydrocephalus. On the other hand, Irwin's love for Harriet is not conflicted at all. She's his compass. But Irwin himself must untangle the web of the human heart.
Masterful and mordantly funny, Strube is at the top of her considerable form in this deliciously subversive story of love and redemption.
"Starred Review. [T]hough Strube imbues most interactions with some degree of comedy and sarcasm, the novel never lacks empathy. Its unexpected turn partway through is suitably wrenching, and the novel's second half, decidedly different in tone and voice, becomes a beautiful echo of its first. Highly recommended." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. A masterful blend of comedy and tragedy ... The tapestry of humanity that Strube presents is richly detailed and profoundly moving." - Quill & Quire
"Strube is the dark horse favourite to succeed Alice Munro as a chronicler of melancholy stories about teen girls." - Toronto Life
This information about On the Shores of Darkness, There Is Light was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Cordelia Strube is an accomplished playwright and the author of nine critically acclaimed novels, including Alex & Zee, Teaching Pigs to Sing, and Lemon. Winner of the CBC literary competition and a Toronto Arts Foundation Award, she has been nominated for the Governor General's Award, the Trillium Book Award, the WH Smith/Books in Canada First Novel Award, and the Prix Italia, and longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Strube is a two-time finalist for ACTRA's Nellie Award celebrating excellence in Canadian broadcasting and a three-time nominee for the ReLit Award. She lives in Toronto.
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