Mary Swan

Emma’s Hands

Emma's-HandsThe stories in this highly praised collection first appeared in Harper’s, The Ontario Review and the Malahat Review, and have been anthologized in Best Canadian Stories, Emergent Voices and Sudden Fiction (Continued). Their settings range from post-Franco Spain to an Israeli kibbutz, from small town Ontario to the beach at Ostend in the early 20th century. Most are quietly cadenced and the prose is marked, as Alice Munro says, by ‘the urgency of feeling and the calm beauty of the telling.’ (Porcupine’s Quill, 2003)

Globe & Mail Top 100 book

 

Read a Story

“This is a writer who arrives with grace and authority.”

Alice Munro

 “[A] stellar first collection of stories … Her brilliant opening lines linger in the mind – hopeful and portentous – ushering the reader forward in anticipation.”
Quill & Quire (starred review)

“An exceptional talent is on display here.”
Canadian Book Review Annual

“smart, beguiling, clear-eyed … Mary Swan shines in collection.”
Toronto Star

 “These character-driven pieces typically relate on two levels at once: documented day-to-day minutiae contrasted with, and often accompanied by, a deeper psychological truth”
Globe & Mail

“lovely, subtle and graceful examinations of memory and loss”
Calgary Herald

 

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