Description:
One of the CBC's Best Books of the Year.
A pregnancy test is taken at a wedding, a bad diagnosis leads a
patient to a surprising outlook, and a civic holiday becomes a dystopian
nightmare. By turns caustic, tender, and creepily hilarious, Sweet
Affliction reveals the frailties, perversions, and resilience of Anna
Leventhal's cast of city-dwellers. Shiftless youths, a compulsive
collector of cigarette butts, and a dying pet rat populate fifteen
sharply-observed and darkly funny stories that suck at the marrow of
modern life.
"It's a joy to read."--The Globe & Mail
"Anna Leventhal [is] one of Montreal's quietly beloved literary personalities."--Cult MTL
"A subtle yet powerful debut."--Inaudible
"Sweet Affliction's reviews have been positive across the board, and
rightly so. It's a collection that reads more like a mid-career
statement than a tentative debut."--Montreal Gazette
Brief description:
Anna Leventhal's acclaimed short story collection Sweet Affliction (Invisible Publishing) won the Quebec Writers' Federation Concordia University First Book Prize and was named one of the best books of 2014 by the CBC. Her writing has appeared in Geist, Matrix, Maisonneuve, The Montreal Review of Books, and several short fiction anthologies. She was nominated for the Journey Prize, won a Quebec Writing Competition award, and was shortlisted for a Canada Writes award. She lives in Montreal.
Review Quotes:
"Sweet Affliction has the ability to make you bark with laughter, choke back sobs, and gasp in wonder, sometimes in the span of a few lines."--Quill & Quire
"It's a joy to read."--The Globe & Mail
"Sweet Affliction's
reviews have been positive across the board, and rightly so. It's a
collection that reads more like a mid-career statement than a tentative
debut."--Montreal Gazette
"This collection of stories
is wonderful...I'm going to lend my copy to a friend to read, but I will
want it back, because this is a book to read again."--Halifax Chronicle Herald
"Sweet Affliction is
a book that refuses to sugarcoat the lives of its characters, offering
readers the kind of glass-half-empty perspective that can be refreshing
in its honesty."--The Bull Calf Review
"Leventhal excels at dark humour."--Montreal Review of Books
"Sweet Affliction
is an insightful piece of fiction filled with dark grace... Leventhal's
stories are able to guide us through full ranges of emotions that are
often only attainable in a longer work of fiction."--Ottawa Review of Books
"Anna Leventhal [is] one of Montreal's quietly beloved literary personalities."--Cult MTL
"A
subtle yet powerful debut... This is a collection to be read slowly, and
one that will stick with its readers after they're done."--Inaudible
"Leventhal's
work grasps multiple and brazen connections between sisters, lovers,
strangers, friends. These stories wander and please. They knife
unexpectedly. Truth is lodged in all the cuts. These stories 'know the
things energy can do.'"--Tamara Faith Berger, author of Maidenhead
"I
loved this little collection. Leventhal's prose is jammed with similes
and metaphors that slap you in the face like you've been hit with a dead
rodent. I often read these gems and jealously said to myself, damn, I
wish I had written that."--Christian McPherson
"Sweet Affliction is--no
big deal or anything--one of the most successful, high-functioning,
sometimes perfect collections of short stories I've read in recent
memory."--Andrew Hood, author of The Cloaca
"These
are serious, vivacious tales, punk-rock and clear-eyed: Karen Russell
corkscrewed with Joan Didion, and as compulsive to read as a Michael
Chabon novel at full gallop."--Sean Michaels, author of Us Conductors