If you crossed Aristophanes with Eugene Ionesco, and then mixed in a bit of tag-team wrestling, you might end up with something like Lynn CoadyÕs irreverent short play Mark. When a not-so-innocent question provokes an argument one Sunday afternoon, it doesn't take long before modern-day courtesy is tossed aside and the true pagan blood sport of competitive couplehood rears its ugly head. Points are hard-won and the penalties are swift and painfulÑwith game play this punishing, what could possibly lie in store for the loser? Or the winner for that matter? But how do you actually win this thing anyway? And what do baby seals have to do with it? Wait, what team was I on again?

Skydiving, a companion piece to Mark, examines the idea of relationship from the inside out. Ash has lost her memory, and her husband Cam is trying to help her remember their life together. Looking at their life choices with fresh eyes, the couple gains a whole new perspective on marriage, personal history, and the interconnectedness of everything. Featuring game show elements and glowing quotations, Skydiving is a meditation on memory and love that is by turns hilarious and poignant.

Lynn Coady is a novelist and essayist whose fiction has been garnering acclaim since her first novel, Strange Heaven, was published and subsequently nominated for the Governor General’s Award for Fiction when she was twenty-eight. Her short story collection Hellgoing won the 2013 Scotiabank Giller Prize, Canada’s most prestigious literary award, for which her novel The Antagonist was also nominated in 2011. Her books have been published in the UK, US, Holland, France, and Germany. Coady has been a journalist, magazine editor, and advice columnist, and is currently writing for television. She divides her time between Edmonton and Toronto. Follow her on Twitter @Lynn_Coady.

Lynn Coady's profile page

ÒAn acclaimed novelist and short story writer, Lynn Coady is an acute, often hilarious observer of the absurdities and indignities of everyday life in small town CanadaÉabrupt, wry, perceptive and shockingly funny.ÓÑCanadian Encyclopedia

ÒÉprose that is by turns angry, funny, tender and sad.ÓÑThe Globe and Mail