AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION NOTABLE BOOK OF 2012
IRISH TIMES BOOK-TO-READ FOR 2012
ATLANTIC BOOK AWARD WINNER
FINALIST FOR THE GILLER PRIZE AND THE FRANK O'CONNOR AWARD
A GLOBE & MAIL, QUILL & QUIRE, AND AMAZON.CA BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
Engrossing, thrilling and ultimately satisfying: each story has the
weight of a novel. --The Economist
This was the day after Mike Tyson bit off Evander Holyfield's ear. You
remember that. It was a moment in history - not like Kennedy or the
planes flying into the World Trade Center - not up at that level. This
was something much lower, more like Ben Johnson, back when his eyes were
that thick, yellow color and he tested positive in Seoul after breaking
the world-record in the hundred. You might not know exactly where you
were standing or exactly what you were doing when you first heard about
Tyson or about Ben, but when the news came down, I bet it stuck with
you. When Tyson bit off Holyfield's ear, that cut right through the
everyday clutter. --from Miracle Mile
Two runners race a cargo train through the darkness of a rat-infested
tunnel beneath the Detroit River. A drugstore bicycle courier crosses a
forbidden threshold in an attempt to save a life and a young swimmer
conquers her fear of water only to discover she's caught in far more
dangerous currents. An auto-worker who loses his family in a car
accident is forced to reconsider his relationship with the internal
combustion engine.
Alexander MacLeod is a writer of ferocious intelligence and ferocious
physicality (CTV). Light Lifting, his celebrated first collection,
offers us a suite of darkly urban and unflinching elegies that explore
the depths of the psyche and channel the subconscious hopes and terrors
that motivate us all. These are elemental stories of work and its bonds,
of tragedy and tragedy barely averted, but also of beauty, love and
fragile understanding.
