THE YOUNG IN THEIR COUNTRY

Description

The young occupy a territory of their own, a foreign land inaccessible to nostalgia and regret. In these eloquent, arresting stories, an assortment of exotic youth send tremors through the foundations of the established world: four summer students interrupt a once-famous artist’s retreat from society; a naive job seeker shakes a frustrated employee out of middle-aged complacency; and a high school student’s safety is threatened by her teacher’s passion for the Riel Rebellion. Unsentimental, often funny, rarely nostalgic, each story of The Young in Their Country is a complete world.

• LONGLISTED forthe Frank O’Connor International Award for Short Fiction
• LONGLISTED for the Relit Awards

“He is one of our finest story writers: exacting, surprising, deftly attuned both to language and to character, tough-minded and large-hearted at the same time–often within the same sentence.” – Steven Heighton, author of Afterlands

“Each of the stories in this powerful collection is a genuine surprise, unfolding with agility and grace through its unusual characters, unpredictable events, sharply distilled dialogue, and impeccably precise description.” – Diane Schoemperlen, author of At a Loss for Words

“Richard Cumyn is a writer who doesn’t like to be boxed in. The stories collected here resist pigeonholing…” – Alex Good, Quill & Quire

“Cumyn’s great talent as a writer is how he mines ordinary situations to reveal a skewed vision of the world.” – Steven Mayoff, Carte Blanche – Best of 2010

“…the prose and characterization are so good that I trust them at least as much as myself.” – Joel Deshaye, Literary Review of Canada

“Cumyn has absolute control over the very clear and clever narration of his characters, and can draw them into madness and violence without also drawing his prose into histrionics.” – Kathryn Wood, Antigonish Review