Shortlisted for the 2019 Alistair MacLeod Prize for Short
Fiction
A collection of intrepid and incisive stories from the Scotiabank Giller
Prize-winning author of The Sentimentalists
Tiger, Tiger takes readers from the Paradise Valley Senior Centre
parking lot all the way to Mars and examines the contradictions of life
along the way. An astounding array of characters come up against the
challenges of existence--both mundane and extraordinary--and their
experiences never fail to surprise and delight.
A scientist finds the truth about love in a lab where he is learning to
grow extinct tigers. A fake wedding at a nursing home brings a divorcée
to the brink of despair while her grandmother marvels at the beauty
around her. A small-town taxidermist realizes his fiancée is never
returning--that he has lost her to an inscrutable ball of light. A
soldier survives the bloody Battle of the Argonne Forest but loses the
faith of his child. An uncanny teenager holds two hundred thousand years
of the world's history in her mind but feels desperately alone.
Profound and paradoxical, these fourteen stories bring us closer to the
truth, even if we discover that it is ultimately unknowable. Masterfully
crafted and astonishingly wise, Tiger, Tiger explores the limits of
understanding, the future of humanity, and establishes Skibsrud as a
rare and exceptional talent.
