WHAT ENDURES
Pauline Holdstock • $0.99
Collected in FPQ Fall 2011
What Endures is a story of powerful love. It is a story that will break your heart. Inspired by true events, it tells of the incredible bond between a mother and daughter, and with gut-wrenching poignancy reminds us of the little things that make life worth living.
Collected in FPQ Fall 2011
What Endures is a story of powerful love. It is a story that will break your heart. Inspired by true events, it tells of the incredible bond between a mother and daughter, and with gut-wrenching poignancy reminds us of the little things that make life worth living.
Praise for Pauline Holdstock
“Holdstock’s writing manages to be both heartbreakingly poetic and densely detailed . . . sad passages, ghostlike recollections, written almost from the vantage point of the present, establish the book as a great work of fiction.”
— The Globe and Mail on Into the Heart of the Country, longlisted for the 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize
“Holdstock, with a few deft strokes, pulls the reader into the tumultuous life of an alluring rabble of characters: painters, sculptors, patrons, fools, and slaves . . . In Beyond Measure, she proves herself a master of pacing. Her lively, macabre plot trips lightly along in spite of its dark elements.”
— The Globe and Mail on Beyond Measure, finalist for the 2004 Giller Prize and the 2004 Commonwealth Writers' Prize (Canadian and Caribbean Region)
“Holdstock’s writing manages to be both heartbreakingly poetic and densely detailed . . . sad passages, ghostlike recollections, written almost from the vantage point of the present, establish the book as a great work of fiction.”
— The Globe and Mail on Into the Heart of the Country, longlisted for the 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize
“Holdstock, with a few deft strokes, pulls the reader into the tumultuous life of an alluring rabble of characters: painters, sculptors, patrons, fools, and slaves . . . In Beyond Measure, she proves herself a master of pacing. Her lively, macabre plot trips lightly along in spite of its dark elements.”
— The Globe and Mail on Beyond Measure, finalist for the 2004 Giller Prize and the 2004 Commonwealth Writers' Prize (Canadian and Caribbean Region)
Preview
The things you remember. Coming in waves, and these, too, like birth pangs.
You were lying in the crook of my arm. Two hours old. Your bruised face filling my heart to breaking. I breathed you in and your smell was like no other. A new thing in this world. Like beeswax, like honey. Like neither. The scent of flesh before any cell decays. Some power in it, stronger than the urge to make love. Stronger than the urge to eat. Uniting me to you, and the two of us to all the animals in the world. I bent my face to yours and I licked you. Furtively, in case a nurse came in.
I watch her snatch up the pants by the waistband and shake them until the socks fall out. But still she doesn’t turn round. She plunks herself down on the rug and begins to pull them on, talking to herself all the time, for all the world as if there was someone else there.
—There you are, you sillies. Silly billies . . .
The lightness of her voice. Hanging there like a kite. Carrying no baggage.
—There. All dressed. Breakfast, sillies.
Oh, please not yet.
It is only a matter of minutes—I’m guessing minutes—but when she comes out of her room and crosses the hall, she stands in the doorway and she knows. She knows but she isn’t afraid.
And who shall there be now to tell you that you have a brave and loving heart?
The things you remember. Coming in waves, and these, too, like birth pangs.
You were lying in the crook of my arm. Two hours old. Your bruised face filling my heart to breaking. I breathed you in and your smell was like no other. A new thing in this world. Like beeswax, like honey. Like neither. The scent of flesh before any cell decays. Some power in it, stronger than the urge to make love. Stronger than the urge to eat. Uniting me to you, and the two of us to all the animals in the world. I bent my face to yours and I licked you. Furtively, in case a nurse came in.
I watch her snatch up the pants by the waistband and shake them until the socks fall out. But still she doesn’t turn round. She plunks herself down on the rug and begins to pull them on, talking to herself all the time, for all the world as if there was someone else there.
—There you are, you sillies. Silly billies . . .
The lightness of her voice. Hanging there like a kite. Carrying no baggage.
—There. All dressed. Breakfast, sillies.
Oh, please not yet.
It is only a matter of minutes—I’m guessing minutes—but when she comes out of her room and crosses the hall, she stands in the doorway and she knows. She knows but she isn’t afraid.
And who shall there be now to tell you that you have a brave and loving heart?
Collected in
FPQ 2011
The Complete Collection
Featuring stories by Caroline Adderson, Meghan Rose Allen, Jack Bootle, Julie Dupuis, Cynthia Flood, Andrew Forbes, Danny Goodman, Pauline Holdstock, Lee Kvern, Kirsty Logan, Dave Margoshes, Don McLellan, Maria Meindl, Grace O'Connell, Richard Rosenbaum, and Lana Storey.
Click on cover for more info
FPQ 2011
The Complete
Collection
$12.99
The Complete Collection
Featuring stories by Caroline Adderson, Meghan Rose Allen, Jack Bootle, Julie Dupuis, Cynthia Flood, Andrew Forbes, Danny Goodman, Pauline Holdstock, Lee Kvern, Kirsty Logan, Dave Margoshes, Don McLellan, Maria Meindl, Grace O'Connell, Richard Rosenbaum, and Lana Storey.
Click on cover for more info
FPQ 2011
The Complete
Collection
$12.99
You Can't Go Home Again
Featuring Mike Mike Mike Mike by Grace O'Connell, The Expansiveness of My Sound by Andrew Forbes, This Is a Love Crime by Lee Kvern, and What Endures by Pauline Holdstock.
Click on cover for more info
FPQ Fall 2011
You Can't Go
Home Again
$3.75
Featuring Mike Mike Mike Mike by Grace O'Connell, The Expansiveness of My Sound by Andrew Forbes, This Is a Love Crime by Lee Kvern, and What Endures by Pauline Holdstock.
Click on cover for more info
FPQ Fall 2011
You Can't Go
Home Again
$3.75
Other stories from Fall 2011
Mike Mike Mike Mike
The sleepy town of Arbford is a house of cards, and Betty is the sudden gust of wind that unknowingly knocks it to the ground. In this insightful tale, where each of the men is called Mike, and each of their wives have a different name, Betty discovers that finding somewhere to call home isn't easy. Fun, emotional, and intelligent, Mike Mike Mike Mike is a modern-day fable with a bit of Desperate Housewives thrown in for good measure.
Click on cover for more info
Mike Mike Mike Mike
Grace O'Connell
$0.99
The sleepy town of Arbford is a house of cards, and Betty is the sudden gust of wind that unknowingly knocks it to the ground. In this insightful tale, where each of the men is called Mike, and each of their wives have a different name, Betty discovers that finding somewhere to call home isn't easy. Fun, emotional, and intelligent, Mike Mike Mike Mike is a modern-day fable with a bit of Desperate Housewives thrown in for good measure.
Click on cover for more info
Mike Mike Mike Mike
Grace O'Connell
$0.99
The Expansiveness of My Sound
Saxophonist Metche Hufu and his best friend Hirut are on top of the world. Their band is the talk of Addis Ababa, filling nightclubs and packing dance floors. Their music is unlike anything you have ever heard. But the precarious existence of this golden age of culture depends on an emperor's benevolence, and his power is beginning to wane. Set against the backdrop of vibrant Addis Ababa nightlife, The Expansiveness of My Sound is an evocative account of the political discord in Ethiopia and the individuals caught in the tumult.
Click on cover for more info
The Expansiveness of My Sound
Andrew Forbes
$0.99
Saxophonist Metche Hufu and his best friend Hirut are on top of the world. Their band is the talk of Addis Ababa, filling nightclubs and packing dance floors. Their music is unlike anything you have ever heard. But the precarious existence of this golden age of culture depends on an emperor's benevolence, and his power is beginning to wane. Set against the backdrop of vibrant Addis Ababa nightlife, The Expansiveness of My Sound is an evocative account of the political discord in Ethiopia and the individuals caught in the tumult.
Click on cover for more info
The Expansiveness of My Sound
Andrew Forbes
$0.99
This Is a Love Crime
Marta is a human resources employee at a grocery store chain. She moves through life passively, always taking the path of least resistance. That is, until one day at work, when she is confronted by an ethical dilemma: A hijab-wearing woman. A strict no-hats policy. And then a cultural opportunity: a seminar on the Sunshine Coast, "Ethnicity and Religion in the World Workplace." With brutal frankness and keen insight, This Is a Love Crime explores the nature of oppression in its many forms, be it cultural, religious, or domestic, while bringing to life vivid characters that will linger like the scent of cigarette smoke long after the story is over.
Click on cover for more info
This Is a Love Crime
Lee Kvern
$0.99
Marta is a human resources employee at a grocery store chain. She moves through life passively, always taking the path of least resistance. That is, until one day at work, when she is confronted by an ethical dilemma: A hijab-wearing woman. A strict no-hats policy. And then a cultural opportunity: a seminar on the Sunshine Coast, "Ethnicity and Religion in the World Workplace." With brutal frankness and keen insight, This Is a Love Crime explores the nature of oppression in its many forms, be it cultural, religious, or domestic, while bringing to life vivid characters that will linger like the scent of cigarette smoke long after the story is over.
Click on cover for more info
This Is a Love Crime
Lee Kvern
$0.99
