From the acclaimed author of Lemon comes a clever and heartbreaking new
novel of love and revelation Harriet is 11 going on 30. Her mixed-media
art is a source of wonder to her younger brother, Irwin, but an
unmitigated horror to the panoply of insufficiently grown-up grown-ups
who surround her. She plans to run away to Algonquin Park, hole up in a
cabin like Tom Thomson and paint trees; and so, to fund her escape, she
runs errands for the seniors who inhabit the Shangrila, the decrepit
apartment building that houses her fractured family. Determined,
resourceful, and a little reckless, Harriet tries to navigate the
clueless adults around her, dumpster dives for the flotsam and jetsam
that fuels her art, and attempts to fathom her complicated feelings for
Irwin, who suffers from hydrocephalus. On the other hand, Irwin's love
for Harriet is not conflicted at all. She's his compass. But Irwin
himself must untangle the web of the human heart. Masterful and
piercingly funny, Strube is at the top of her considerable form in this
deliciously subversive story of love and revelation.