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Published Oct 2021
256 pages
Genre: Short Stories
Paperback Original.
Publication Information
Set in the Niagara Falls of Craig Davidson's imagination - known as "Cataract City" - the superb stories of Cascade shine a shimmering light on this slightly seedy, slightly magical, slightly haunted place.
From the bestselling author of The Saturday Night Ghost Club comes this collection of seven brilliantly cinematic short stories. The gems in this collection each illuminate familial relationships in a singular way: A mother and her infant son fight to survive a car crash in a remote wintry landscape outside of town. Fraternal twins at a juvenile detention center reach a dangerous crisis point in their entwined lives. A pregnant social worker grapples with the prospect of parenthood as a custody case takes a dire turn. A hardboiled ex-firefighter goes after a serial arsonist with a flair for the theatrical even as his own troubled sister is drawn toward the flames. These are just some of the unforgettable characters animating this stellar collection that crackles with Davidson's superb craft and kinetic energy: in the steel-tipped prose, in the psychological perspicacity, and in the endearing humor.
"[A] wonderful and gritty collection...Throughout, the author displays deep empathy and conveys emotional resonance. The result is a blissful, wholly satisfying assemblage of cinematic stories, sure to please Davidson's fans and attract newcomers." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Davidson's real gift is for closely observing small actions...[his] prose takes the unfamiliar—the extraordinary, whether good or bad—and makes it an embodied experience. You feel it in your bones...Chilling tales of misfits and misfortune by a masterful writer." - Kirkus Reviews
"Davidson's prose is very sharp but never only sharp; it is alive, it is limpid, it is darkly funny, and it never hides or shies from love. You should read this collection now, so that you can read it again, in the winter, and again next spring." - Amy Bloom, National Book Award finalist and author of White Houses
This information about Cascade 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.
Craig Davidson is the author of the Scotiabank Giller Prize–nominated novel Cataract City and Rust and Bone, which was the inspiration for a Golden Globe–nominated feature film of the same name. Davidson lives in Toronto, Canada.
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