NEWS RELEASE
Rebellious Women
Master of the short story shatters female
stereotypes with tales of unorthodox women
Contact:
Dorothy Speak
613 859 7654 (cell)
613 238 0403 (home)
[email protected]
www.dorothyspeak.com
Ottawa, Ontario, January 2013
This dazzling volume by short story master and novelist, Dorothy Speak, entitled Reconciliation, is an earthquake of a book certain to shake readers with narratives of women who
sunder societal boundaries.
Dorothy Speak’s two critically acclaimed story collections (The Counsel of the Moon and
Object of Your Love) have earned her comparison with the work of such luminaries as Alice
Munro, Ellen Gilchrist and Joyce Carol Oates. Her novel, The Wife Tree, has been likened to
Margaret Laurence’s mighty Stone Angel. Speak is one of only a few Canadian authors still
embracing the challenging short story form, a genre at one time considered a Canadian
literary strength. Speak grew up in southern Ontario, but has lived in Ottawa for thirty years.
“Speak very quickly draws the reader in, not simply because of her narrative skill, her
unfailing instinct for the right word and the right image, but because she has a marvellous
ability to create characters the reader actually cares about. This is not such a common ability
as one might think,” wrote Phillip Marchand of the Toronto Star.
At a time when the female is objectified and reduced to cliché in film, television and print,
Speak’s characters are a refreshing reminder of the formidable power of women. This is a
book for readers looking for page-turning plots, rich prose and audacious humour.
Reconciliation is available in print from www.chaptersindigo.ca and www.amazon.ca and as
an ebook from www.amazon.com. It can be ordered through your local bookstore. In
Ottawa, it is carried by Perfect Books, Octopus Books and Singing Pebble Books.
I
n this eagerly awaited third story collection, Dorothy Speak brings her
familiar wit, compassion and irony to bear on narratives about the fragility
and elusiveness of love. Through incidents of crime, suicide, accident,
illness, marital collapse and death, the stories place families and friendships
under pressures that bring these intimate relationships to the point of ruin.
A house painter whose wife dies of cancer learns a painful truth about his
marriage from his estranged son; a woman involved in a fatal car accident
discovers that the husband she took for granted has become a stranger; a
small-time journalist in a coastal city is duped by her best friend. Yet, despite
these devastations, her protagonists rise from the ashes and move on with
dignity and hope.
These stories about adult relationships in urban settings explore the themes
of loss, betrayal and self-discovery for which Speak has been praised. Each
is crafted in her lustrous prose. This is a book that will reward every adult
intrigued by the unpredictability and mystery of life.
Speak’s stories have been compared to the work of such luminaries as Alice
Munro, Ellen Gilchrist and Joyce Carol Oates. Her novel, The Wife Tree, has
been likened to Margaret Laurence’s mighty Stone Angel.
Reviews of her books and an extensive Q&A can be found on her website:
www.dorothyspeak.com
Praise for DOROTHY SPEAK
“Speak very quickly draws the reader in, not simply because of her narrative skill, her
unfailing instinct for the right word and the right image, but because she has a marvellous
ability to create characters the reader actually cares about. This is not such a common
ability as one might think.” Phillip Marchand, Toronto Star
“Dorothy Speak can run with the best storytellers: Alice Munro, Ellen Gilchrist, Alice
Adams, Joyce Carol Oates, Jayne Anne Phillips.” W. P. Kinsella
“The smallness in people, the meanness, the coldness, the banality of their sins makes the
plots containing these stories burst at their steely seams.” L.A. Times
“Strong, memorable stories that add scarred, exhausted flesh and blood to ‘the sad statistics
of the heart.’ Alice Munro would surely approve.” Kirkus Reviews
“Speak probes into uncomfortable places and lays bare ambivalences in relationships that, in
polite company, are not normally dissected and scrutinized with anything like this author’s
degree of candor.” Globe and Mail
“We are enjoying the greatest flowering of CanLit we have ever had – Margaret Atwood,
Alice Munro, Douglas Coupland, Michael Ondaatje. Welcome to the gang, Dorothy Speak.”
Heather Mallick
“Dorothy Speak’s characters are wilful and original; her prose is spare, sharp and intense.”
Redbook
“Speak is a gifted analyst of the stark realities of life. She explores the intricate terrain of
women’s lives with eloquent and witty prose.” Publisher’s Weekly
“Not for the faint of heart or for readers in search of fairy-tale endings…Speak’s voice is
lean and eloquent, hard-edged as the facets of a diamond and just as brilliant.” Hour
“The power of Speak’s portrayal of characters rests in the snatches of vivid detail, the ear
for the precise word, the narrator’s deft irony and compassionate sensibility.”
Canadian Literature.
“Rooted firmly in the tradition of Ontario Gothic, the story of Morgan Hazzard delivers
literary pleasures of the highest order…Speak is blessed with a gift for black humour and
hardnosed empathy that resists easy reduction to the maudlin or sentimental.”
Ottawa X Press
“Speak stands alongside Margaret Laurence and Constance Beresford-Howe in portraying
indelible older women.” Kitchener Record