I am from Halifax, salt-water city, a place of silted genius, sudden
women, figures floating in all waters. "People from Halifax are all
famous," my sister Faith has said. "Because everyone in Halifax knows
each other's business."
From basement rec rooms to midnight railway tracks, Action Transfers to
Smarties boxes crammed with joints, from Paul McCartney on the kitchen
radio to their furious teenaged cover of The Ramones, Aubrey McKee and
his familiars navigate late adolescence amidst the old-monied decadence
of Halifax. An arcana of oddball angels, Alex Pugsley's long-awaited
debut novel follows rich-kid drug dealers and junior tennis brats,
émigré heart surgeons and small-time thugs, renegade private school
girls and runaway children as they try to make sense of the city into
which they've been born. Part coming-of-age-story, part social
chronicle, and part study of the myths that define our growing up,
Aubrey McKee introduces a breathtakingly original new voice.