Saltus / Tara Gereaux.
Material type:
TextPublisher: Gibson's, British Columbia : Nightwood Editions, 2021Description: viii, 296 pages ; 22 cmContent type: - text
- unmediated
- volume
- 9780889714007
- 0889714002
| Item type | Home library | Collection | Call number | Materials specified | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adult Book
|
Main Library | Fiction | GEREAUX, TARA | Available | 33111010573778 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
Evocative of Miriam Toews' A Complicated Kindness and Diane Warren's Cool Water, Tara Gereaux's novel, set in small-town Saskatchewan, dissects themes of Métis identity, female identity and motherhood, aging and regret, and finally, acceptance.
Nothing ever seems to happen in the small town of Saltus. At the Harvest Gold Inn and Restaurant off Highway 53, two waitresses spend their evening shifts delivering Salisbury steak specials and slices of pie to the regulars. But everything changes when Nadine, a headstrong single mother, and her teenager, Aaron, arrive at the Gold, where Aaron--who has repeatedly been denied appropriate gender-affirming medical care from the mainstream system--undergoes a near-fatal procedure performed by an unqualified and eccentric recluse who lives on the outskirts of Saltus.
The events that transpire that evening force each townsperson to look long and hard at themselves, at their own identities, and at the traumas and experiences that have shaped them. Told from multiple perspectives, Saltus reveals the complexities inherent in accepting the identities of loved ones, and the tragic consequences that unfold if they are ignored. It is a story about relationships with others, and, even more importantly, with ourselves.
"It's the '90s in a small Canadian prairie town and fourteen-year-old Aaron Gourlay, born a male, asserts that she is female, a claim that no one in her life will accept--except for her single mother, Nadine. After wrestling with the health care system and having her identity invalidated time and time again, Aaron tries to kill herself. Desperate to keep her child alive, Nadine calls on a neighbouring town's outlier and loner, Al Klassen, to perform a radical procedure. Aaron's attempt to jumpstart her own gender transition with Al's assistance creates shockwaves that throw everyone around them out of orbit--and out of their resigned apathy in the stifling town of Saltus, where nothing new ever seems to happen. Lenore is a Métis woman working at the Harvest Gold Inn & Restaurant who longs for the family she never had. Trish is a young mother who desires nothing more than to flee her husband and son, the family she was never ready for. Roger is the by-the-book police officer investigating Aaron's case. Aaron and Nadine's situation, the talk of the town, forces each townsperson we encounter to look long and hard at themselves, at their own identities, at the traumas and experiences that have shaped them."-- Provided by publisher.