The Bone Mother
Published on 17. October 2019
Book
Hardback
240 pages
978-1-77148-557-9 (ISBN)
Description
SHORT-LISTED FOR THE 2018 AMAZON CANADA FIRST NOVEL AWARD!
LONG-LISTED FOR THE 2017 SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE!
FINALIST FOR THE 2017 SHIRLEY JACKSON AWARD!
WINNER OF THE 2018 SUNBURST AWARD!
LONG-LISTED FOR THE 2018 TORONTO BOOK AWARDS!
Three neighbouring villages on the Ukrainian/Romanian border are the final refuge for the last of the mythical creatures of Eastern Europe. Now, on the eve of the war that may eradicate their kind-and with the ruthless Night Police descending upon their sanctuary-they tell their stories and confront their destinies:
The Rusalka, the beautiful vengeful water spirit who lives in lakes and ponds and lures men and children to their deaths;
The Vovkulaka, who changes from her human form into that of a wolf and hides with her kind deep in the densest forests;
The Strigoi, a revenant who feasts on blood and twists the minds of those who love, serve and shelter him;
The Dvoynik, an apparition that impersonates its victim and draws him into a web of evil in order to free itself;
And the Bone Mother, a skeletal crone with iron teeth who lurks in her house in the heart of the woods, and cooks and eats those who fail her vexing challenges.
Eerie and unsettling like the best fairy tales, these incisor-sharp portraits of ghosts, witches, sirens, and seers-and the mortals who live at their side and in their thrall-will chill your marrow and tear at your heart.
"Demchuk gracefully pieces together a dark and shining mosaic of a story with unforgettable imagery and elegant, evocative prose. These stories read like beautiful and brutal nightmares, sharply disquieting, and are made all the more terrifying by the history in which they're grounded."
-Publishers Weekly (STARRED REVIEW)
LONG-LISTED FOR THE 2017 SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE!
FINALIST FOR THE 2017 SHIRLEY JACKSON AWARD!
WINNER OF THE 2018 SUNBURST AWARD!
LONG-LISTED FOR THE 2018 TORONTO BOOK AWARDS!
Three neighbouring villages on the Ukrainian/Romanian border are the final refuge for the last of the mythical creatures of Eastern Europe. Now, on the eve of the war that may eradicate their kind-and with the ruthless Night Police descending upon their sanctuary-they tell their stories and confront their destinies:
The Rusalka, the beautiful vengeful water spirit who lives in lakes and ponds and lures men and children to their deaths;
The Vovkulaka, who changes from her human form into that of a wolf and hides with her kind deep in the densest forests;
The Strigoi, a revenant who feasts on blood and twists the minds of those who love, serve and shelter him;
The Dvoynik, an apparition that impersonates its victim and draws him into a web of evil in order to free itself;
And the Bone Mother, a skeletal crone with iron teeth who lurks in her house in the heart of the woods, and cooks and eats those who fail her vexing challenges.
Eerie and unsettling like the best fairy tales, these incisor-sharp portraits of ghosts, witches, sirens, and seers-and the mortals who live at their side and in their thrall-will chill your marrow and tear at your heart.
"Demchuk gracefully pieces together a dark and shining mosaic of a story with unforgettable imagery and elegant, evocative prose. These stories read like beautiful and brutal nightmares, sharply disquieting, and are made all the more terrifying by the history in which they're grounded."
-Publishers Weekly (STARRED REVIEW)
Reviews / Votes
"Demchuk gracefully pieces together a dark and shining mosaic of a story with unforgettable imagery and elegant, evocative prose. These stories read like beautiful and brutal nightmares, sharply disquieting, and are made all the more terrifying by the history in which they're grounded."-Publishers Weekly (STARRED REVIEW)
"Well crafted and significant in its own right, Demchuk's novel seems all the more important in light of recent displays of far-right and overt Nazi hatred. As one narrator says, 'Some stories need to be told time and again. Every generation forgets. Every child learns anew.'"
-The Globe and Mail
"The Bone Mother by Toronto author David Demchuk is one of the boundary-pushing works by emerging writers contending for the award."
-Peterborough Examiner (On Giller Prize Longlist Selection)
"David Demchuk's The Bone Mother, a fable filled with mythical creatures ranging from werewolves to witches, and is set, in part, among the villages of eastern Europe on the eve of the Second World War is one of three first-time authors on the (Giller Prize) longlist."
-The Globe & Mail (On Giller Prize Longlist Selection)
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Toronto
Canada
Product notice
Paper over boards
Illustrations
26 Illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 140 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-77148-557-9 (9781771485579)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
David Demchuk was born and raised in Winnipeg and now lives in Toronto. He has been writing for theatre, film, television, radio and other media for more than thirty years. His publications include the short-fiction cycle Seven Dreams and the Lewis Carroll adaptation Alice in Cyberspace, and appearances in the anthologies Making, Out!, Outspoken and Canadian Brash. His reviews, essays, interviews and columns have appeared in such magazines as Toronto Life, Xtra, What! Magazine, and Prairie Fire, as well as the Toronto Star. Most recently he has been a contributing writer for the digital magazine Torontoist. The Bone Mother is his first novel. It was recently long-listed for the prestigious Scotiabank Giller Prize, as well as shortlisted for the Amazon Canada First Novel Award, and is a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award.