These superbly crafted stories reveal an astonishing range, with settings that vary from a farm on the Canadian prairies to Bloomsbury in London, from a high-rise apartment to a mine-shaft. Vanderhaeghe has the uncanny ability to show us the world through the eyes of an eleven-year-old boy as convincingly as he reveals it through the eyes of an old man approaching senility. Moving from the hilarious farce of teenage romance all the way to the numbing tragedy of life in a ward for incurables, these twelve stories inspire belief, admiration, and enjoyment, and come together to form a vibrant chronicle of human experience from a gifted observer of life’s joys and tribulations. This is Guy Vanderhaeghe’s brilliant first book of fiction.

Guy Vanderhaeghe was born in Esterhazy, Saskatchewan in 1951. He is the author of six books of fiction. His first two books were collections of short stories: Man Descending (1982), which won the Governor’s General’s Award, and the Faber Prize in the U.K., and The Trouble With Heroes (1983). My Present Age, a novel, was published in 1984 and was followed by Homesick in 1989. That novel was a co-winner of the City of Toronto Book Award. His third book of short stories was the highly praised Things As They Are? (1992). The Englishman’s Boy (1996) was a long-time national bestseller and won the Governor General’s Award for Fiction, the Saskatchewan Book Award for Fiction and for Best Book of the Year, and was short-listed for The Giller Prize, and the prestigious International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the world’s largest monetary award for a single book. Acclaimed for his fiction, Vanderhaeghe has also written plays. I Had a Job I Liked. Once. was first produced in 1991, and won the Canadian Authors Association Award for Drama. His second play, Dancock’s Dance, was produced in 1995. He is currently completing a screenplay for The Englishman’s Boy. Guy lives in Saskatoon, where he is a Visiting Professor of English at S.T.M. College. His most recent book, The Last Crossing, has been short-listed for a total of three Saskatchewan Book Awards: Best Book of the Year, Fiction Book of the Year, and the Saskatoon Book Award.

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“These stories are wonderful! I thought I’d ‘sample’ them, and I’ve read them all with that astonished gratitude you feel when you meet a real writer.”
–Alice Munro

“Technically delightful, with multi-themes and layers of meaning.…These are stories to be reread and remembered.”
–Books in Canada

“[These stories] all repay close reading with solid entertainment.”
–New York Times

“Original and stylish, written with a quirky, self-deprecating awareness of the sad shifts men are put to in order to survive.”
–Daily Telegraph (U.K.)

“Flawless.…Each of these stories circles around in the mind, weaving itself into the fabric of the imagination, until the final lines, when, as if a trap door suddenly opens, the whole world of the story drops en masse into the realm of the heart.”
–Bloomsbury Review (U.S.)

“A remarkable achievement.…The stories mark a compelling debut of an artist who sees with compassion the terror and sometimes the joy of the human condition.”
–David Staines, Ottawa Citizen

“[Vanderhaeghe] is blessed with remarkable poise and assurance.…There’s the same shiver of delight and joy of discovery that accompanied Alice Munro’s first collection of stories.”
–Globe and Mail

“Admirably crafted.…”
–The Guardian

“Stunningly good stories.…The action and dialogue are vivid, authentic and often hilarious.…”
–Winnipeg Free Press

“[The stories] shows Vanderhaeghe’s mastery of irony and his dexterity in maneuvering from the comic to the tragic.”
–Journal-Constitution (U.S.)

“[A] remarkable selection of stories.”
–ALA Booklist (U.S.)

“Any Canadian looking in the bathroom mirror is sure to recognize one of Guy Vanderhaeghe’s people. Man Descending is the startling debut of an excellent writer.”
–Rudy Wiebe