Prairie Edge
A Novel
Published on 16. April 2024
272 pages
978-0-7710-0358-5 (ISBN)
Description
Shortlisted for the 2024 Giller Prize • Finalist for the 2024 Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Prize • A Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year • One of CBC's Best Canadian Fiction of 2024
The Giller Prize-longlisted author of Avenue of Champions returns with a frenetic, propulsive crime thriller that doubles as a sharp critique of modern activism and challenges readers to consider what "Land Back" might really look like.
Meet Isidore "Ezzy" Desjarlais and Grey Ginther: two distant Métis cousins making the most of Grey's uncle's old trailer, passing their days playing endless games of cribbage and cracking cans of cheap beer in between. Grey, once a passionate advocate for change, has been hardened and turned cynical by an activist culture she thinks has turned performative and lazy. One night, though, she has a revelation, and enlists Ezzy, who is hopelessly devoted to her but eager to avoid the authorities after a life in and out of the group home system and jail, for a bold yet dangerous political mission: capture a herd of bison from a national park and set them free in downtown Edmonton, disrupting the churn of settler routine. But as Grey becomes increasingly single-minded in her newfound calling, their act of protest puts the pair and those close to them in peril, with devastating and sometimes fatal consequences.
For readers drawn to the electric storytelling of Morgan Talty and the taut register of Stephen Graham Jones, Conor Kerr's Prairie Edge is at once a gripping, darkly funny caper and a raw reckoning with the wounds that persist across generations.
The Giller Prize-longlisted author of Avenue of Champions returns with a frenetic, propulsive crime thriller that doubles as a sharp critique of modern activism and challenges readers to consider what "Land Back" might really look like.
Meet Isidore "Ezzy" Desjarlais and Grey Ginther: two distant Métis cousins making the most of Grey's uncle's old trailer, passing their days playing endless games of cribbage and cracking cans of cheap beer in between. Grey, once a passionate advocate for change, has been hardened and turned cynical by an activist culture she thinks has turned performative and lazy. One night, though, she has a revelation, and enlists Ezzy, who is hopelessly devoted to her but eager to avoid the authorities after a life in and out of the group home system and jail, for a bold yet dangerous political mission: capture a herd of bison from a national park and set them free in downtown Edmonton, disrupting the churn of settler routine. But as Grey becomes increasingly single-minded in her newfound calling, their act of protest puts the pair and those close to them in peril, with devastating and sometimes fatal consequences.
For readers drawn to the electric storytelling of Morgan Talty and the taut register of Stephen Graham Jones, Conor Kerr's Prairie Edge is at once a gripping, darkly funny caper and a raw reckoning with the wounds that persist across generations.
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04/2024
McClelland & Stewart
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Person
CONOR KERR is a Métis/Ukrainian educator, writer, and harvester. He is a member of the Métis Nation of Alberta, part of the Edmonton Indigenous community and is descended from the Lac Ste. Anne & Fort Des Prairies Métis communities and the Papaschase Cree Nation. His Ukrainian family settled in Treaty 4 territory in Saskatchewan. Conor works as the Executive Director of Indigenous Education and Services at Langara College.
Conor's debut novel, Avenue of Champions (Nightwood Editions), made the longlist for the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize, won the 2022 ReLit Novel Award, and made the shortlist for the 2022 Amazon Canada First Novel Award. In 2021, Conor received The Malahat Review's Long Poem Prize. In 2019, Conor received The Fiddlehead's Ralph Gustafson Poetry Prize. His writing has been anthologized in Best Canadian Stories 2020 and Best Canadian Poetry 2020, and has appeared in literary magazines across Canada. His next poetry collection, Old Gods, will come out through Nightwood Editions later this spring.
Conor's debut novel, Avenue of Champions (Nightwood Editions), made the longlist for the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize, won the 2022 ReLit Novel Award, and made the shortlist for the 2022 Amazon Canada First Novel Award. In 2021, Conor received The Malahat Review's Long Poem Prize. In 2019, Conor received The Fiddlehead's Ralph Gustafson Poetry Prize. His writing has been anthologized in Best Canadian Stories 2020 and Best Canadian Poetry 2020, and has appeared in literary magazines across Canada. His next poetry collection, Old Gods, will come out through Nightwood Editions later this spring.
