The Work of Heather O'Neill

The Work of Heather O'Neill

This article relates to The Capital of Dreams

Novelist, essayist, and contributor to NPR's This American Life, Heather O'Neill is a literary powerhouse in Canada, where she was born and raised and lives today. Her debut novel Lullabies for Little Criminals was published first in the US (Harper Perennial, 2006) before going on to win notable Canadian literary awards Canada Reads and the Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction, as well as being shortlisted for several international awards, including the Orange Prize for Fiction and the Governor General's Award. Her 2022 novel When We Lost Our Heads was a bestseller and finalist for the Grand Prix du Livre de Montréal.

O'Neill speaks openly now about her difficult childhood in Montreal — her mother decided she wanted to be a punk rocker when she was a child and sent her to live with her father, a janitor with an emotionally unpredictable streak. Lullabies for Little Criminals features a motherless, young protagonist, intellectually gifted but neglected by the adults in her life, who eventually turns to the streets for survival. O'Neill recalls many classmates in similar situations, "cast off from society" but "fully realized human beings with their own perspectives." She saw herself as a poet while her teachers saw her as "this scruffy, neglected kid." In The Capital of Dreams, she weaves stories told by her father, a World War II veteran, into fairytales that blend into the forests of her imaginary Elysia.

O'Neill is known for taking on dark themes with a light touch (see: mythical forests and talking animals with war atrocities in The Capital of Dreams, harsh realities related to sex work and drugs with Baby's intelligent, infectious voice in Lullabies). She chronicles the lives of those on society's margins, particularly women and children who serve as unacknowledged and forgotten observers. When We Lost Our Heads tells the tale of two women during the Victorian era who are deeply attached to each other, determined to break free of the period's confining standards of womanhood, but ultimately becoming the greatest villains of their own lives.

Other notable works from O'Neill include The Girl Who Was Saturday Night (2014) and Daydreams of Angels (2015), both shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and The Lonely Hearts Hotel (2017), for which she again won the Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction.

Filed under Books and Authors

This article relates to The Capital of Dreams. It first ran in the January 15, 2025 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.